Solidity 0.5.1, when creating a contract object, why do we have to pass the token to that contract's constructor even if there is no constructor - constructor

Question

Here is the code:
pragma solidity 0.5.1;
contract ERC20Token{
string public name;
mapping(address => uint256) public balances;
function mint() public{
balances[tx.origin] += 1;
}
}
contract MyContract {
address payable wallet;
address public token;
constructor(address payable _wallet, address _token) public {
wallet = _wallet;
token = _token;
}
function() external payable {
buyToken();
}
function buyToken() public payable{
ERC20Token _token = ERC20Token(address(token));
_token.mint();
wallet.transfer(msg.value);
}
}
Process:
First, we are getting the ERC20Token contract address by deploying the ERC20Token contract in the first place.
Secondly, MyContract constructor takes (a wallet address and the ERC20Token contract address) as two parameters.
Then, we create a ERC20Token contract object from this line
ERC20Token _token = ERC20Token(address(token));
I got confused by how this line worked. Even the ERC20Token contract does not contain any constructor, where the above code passes the token as a parameter to the ERC20Token constructor.
If i delete the token parameter from the above code:
ERC20Token _token = ERC20Token();
I will get an error called
Exactly one argument expected for explicit type conversion
Could anyone explain to me why this happens in solidity?

Answer 1

Without the new keyword, you're making a pointer to an already deployed instance of the ERC20Token contract, passing its address in the argument. Since the contract is already deployed and the constructor has been already executed, you do not pass its constructor params.
// address of existing instance
ERC20Token _token = ERC20Token(address(token));
With the new keyword, you'd be deploying a new instance of ERC20Token, specifying its constructor params. Its address is then available by typecasting the variable to address type.
// creating new instance
// passing constructor params (in your case empty)
ERC20Token _token = new ERC20Token();
// address of the newly deployed contract
address tokenAddress = address(_token);