Wrapper Classes in Java: When and How to Use Them

In Java, wrapper classes play a crucial role in dealing with primitive data types as objects. They wrap primitive values into objects, allowing you to perform various operations that are otherwise not possible with primitives. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of wrapper classes, understand why they are needed, differentiate them from data types, provide code examples, discuss best practices, recommend books for further learning, and highlight some commonly used functions in wrapper classes.

Introduction

Java is a strongly-typed language, which means that every variable must have a specific data type. However, sometimes you need to treat primitive data types like objects, especially when working with collections, generics, or when you want to call methods on them. This is where wrapper classes come into play.

What Are Wrapper Classes?

Wrapper classes in Java are classes that provide a way to use primitive data types as objects. Each primitive data type has a corresponding wrapper class, which encapsulates the primitive value and provides additional functionality. Here are the commonly used wrapper classes and their corresponding primitive data types:

• Integer (int)
• Double (double)
• Character (char)
• Boolean (boolean)
• Byte (byte)
• Short (short)