Boxing and Unboxing

Reference types, Value types, and Patterns - slide 15 : 29

Boxing and Unboxing

The use of boxing facilitates compatibility between value types and reference types

Boxing involves a wrapping of a value in an object of the class Object

Unboxing involves an unwrapping of a value from an object

Boxing
- Done as an implicit type conversion
- Involves allocation of a new object on the heap and copying of the value into that object
Unboxing
- Done explicitly via a type cast
- Involves extraction of the value of a box

A program that illustrates boxing and unboxing.

Output of the boxing and unboxing program.