type mismatch: cannot convert from double to float

[bugger]

I have following line of code:

float average = 12.2;

It gives me following error

Type mismatch: cannot convert from double to float

I tried few things and was able to fix it using:

float average = 12.2f;

I don't know why f is required with float value. Please explain.

[hardwired]

The default in java is that a primitive with a decimal in it is a double. For the lower precision float type we need to specify with a trailing "F", "f" or cast the value to float.
Same applies with int and long types using "L", "l" or long cast.
See paragraph 3 under the Literals header on Primitive Data Types.

[bugger]

Thanks for the reference. It really helped.