Why Use Wrapper Classes?
- Collections Support: Collections like ArrayList or HashMap cannot store primitive types directly, so wrapper classes are needed.
- Utility Methods: Wrapper classes provide v.
- Autoboxing & Unboxing:
- Autoboxing: Automatically converts primitive → object.
- Unboxing: Automatically converts object → primitive.
- Pure Object-Oriented Design: Using wrapper classes lets you treat all data as objects, making your application truly object-oriented.
Key Points to Remember
- Wrapper classes allow seamless integration of primitives in an object-oriented environment.
- Trade-off: Slightly slower performance compared to using primitives because of object overhead.
Summary
Java is not purely object-oriented because it supports primitive data types like int, float, and boolean, which are not objects. While primitives are faster, they limit fully object-oriented design. Wrapper classes provide object representations of primitives, enabling primitives to be treated as objects. They are essential for working with collections, offer utility methods for conversion and parsing, and support autoboxing and unboxing for seamless primitive-object conversions. Using wrapper classes helps in creating fully object-oriented applications, though with a minor performance trade-off due to object overhead.