In the sample code below I am dividing by zero which when I step through it with the debugger the (dividend / divisor) yeilds an Infinity or NaN (if the divisor is zero). When I cast this result to a long I get a valid result, usually something like -9223372036854775808. Why is this cast valid? Why doesn't it stop executing (throw an exception for example) rather than assign an arbitrary value?

double divisor = 0;
double dividend = 7;
long result = (long)(dividend / divisor);