Why not auto-box Java primitive types for Generics?

Question

Java does not allow primitive types to be used in generic data structures. E.g. ArrayList<int> is not allowed. The reason is, primitive types can not be directly converted to Object. However Java 1.5 does support auto-boxing, and wrapper classes work in generic data structures. So why couldn't the compiler auto-box it to ArrayList<Integer>? Are there any other reasons for why this can not work?

Answer 1

So as far as I understand it, your proposed ArrayList<int> would be identical to ArrayList<Integer>. Is that right? (In other words, internally it still stores an Integer; and every time you put something in or get it out, it would automatically box/unbox it, but autoboxing/autounboxing already does that for ArrayList<Integer>.)

If it is the same, then I don't understand what the utility of having a duplicate syntax <int> is when it means the same thing as <Integer>. (In fact it will introduce additional problems, because for example int[] is not the same runtime type as Integer[], so if you have T[], and T is int, what would it mean?)

Answer 2

The generic type information is erased at run time. Check this link. Generics have more to do with compile time checking than run time checking. The autoboxing and unboxing are the run time operations. See the link. This is the reason that autoboxing should not work with Generics.