What exactly does an ArrayList store?

Question

I know I can add object of any type to an ArrayList instance. If I get it right, then reference types are casted to objects (value types are boxed). Also, does an ArrayList actually store lists of objects of reference type object?

Answer 1

Internally the ArrayList class uses a fixed size array object[] (object array) for storage. When you add elements those elements are automatically copied to their respective indexes in the array. When the max size is reached a new array is created with a larger size and the elements are recopied. So it's just a convenience wrapper around a static object array.