Do you know Java? It'll be easier to explain if you do.
In Java, everything is an Object. Object's are treated as references
to a specific memory location which holds the actual data. So when you
pass an Object to a method, you're only passing the method the memory
location of that Object.
For performance reasons Java has primitives. It makes little sense to
pass a memory-location of an integer to a method, when the memory-
location itself takes up the same number of bits as an integer. So
primitives are passed to methods directly by value.
Unfortunately, most of the standard API is written around Objects.
Vectors, Lists, Maps, all are collections of Objects. If you wish to
put a primitive in a Vector, you must first create a Object that wraps
around the primitive.
ie. class Integer {
int i;
}
This lets you use primitives with the standard API.
The process of wrapping a primitive up into a object is called boxing.
The reverse is called unboxing. And when Java does it automatically
for you, it's called autoboxing.
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