doubt about wrapping and boxing

[sonia jaswal]

are wrapping and boxing the same?
if not wht is the diffrence between them?

[Jari Timonen]

Issue is just semantics since process is going from int to wrapper object and wrapper to int:

    
List<Integer> map = new ArrayList<Integer>();
map.add(1); // Wrapping/boxing int to Integer
 
int i = map.get(0); // Unwrap/unbox to int
System.out.println(i);

Remember that e.x. Integer Object-type is only wrapper object!

    
Integer i = new Integer(1);
Integer ii = new Integer(1);
System.out.println(i == ii); // will result false, since they are normal objects.

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/03/24/autoboxing.html

Boxing is a way to wrap primitive types with objects so that they can be used like objects. For example, the Integer class wraps the int primitive type in Java. Similarly, unboxing is a way to convert object types back to primitive types.

[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: Jari Timonen ]