Autoboxing: So I can write: Integer i = 0; instead of: Integer i = new Integer(0);

Question

Autoboxing seems to come down to the fact that I can write:

Integer i = 0; 

instead of:

Integer i = new Integer(0);

So, the compiler can automatically convert a primitive to an Object.

Is that the idea? Why is this important?

Answer 1

BTW

Integer i = 0;

is equivalent to

Integer i = Integer.valueOf(0);

The distinction is that valueOf() does not create a new object for values between -128 and 127 (Apparently this will be tunable if Java 6u14)