Beware of Primitive Wrappers in Java

In Java, there are 8 primitive data types:

• byte (this is equivalent to sbyte in C#)
• short (just like short / Int16 in C#)
• int (just like int / Int32 in C#)
• long (equivalent to long / Int64)
• float (similar to float / Single)
• double (similar to double / Double)
• boolean (equivalent to bool / Boolean)
• char (equivalent to char / Char)

Now, these primitive types are not part of the Java Type System, as you might have seen in Beginning Java for .NET developers in the slides, at page 21. These primitives (“value types”) have reference-type peers that are typically spelled the same (except int/Integer, char/Character) and just have the first letter capitalized.

Just like you should avoid comparing strings with == in Java, you should avoid declaring variables and fields of the reference-type peers, unless for a good reason.

The main danger lies in the fact that being reference types and Java not having operator overloading (see Beginning Java for .NET developers, slide 15) comparing two instances with the == operator will compare the instances and not the values.

“Oh, but you’re wrong!”, some of you might say, “I’ve written code like this and it worked!”. Code like this:

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Integer i1 = 23;
        Integer i2 = 23;

        System.out.println("i1 == i2 -> " + (i1 == i2));
    }
}

Yes, it does print:

i1 == i2 -> true

It will work to values up to 127 inclusive. Just replace 23 with 128 (or higher) and see how things go. I’ll wait here.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This thing works because of a reason called integer caching (and there are ways to extend the interval on which it works – by default -128 up to 127 inclusive) but you shouldn’t rely on it.

Just use int where available or at least use the .intValue() method.

You might wonder what is the Integer (and the rest of the reference-type wrappers) there for? For a few things where they are needed. Once, because the generics in Java are lacking and you can’t define a generic type with primitive type(s) as type arguments. That’s right, you can’t have List<int>. Scary? Yes, especially when coming from .NET where generics are not implemented with type erasure. So you need to say List<integer> and then watch out for reference comparison instead of value comparison, autoboxing performance loss and so on.

The other reason why you need these wrappers is because there is no nullable-types support in Java. So if you need to have a variable or a field that can store a primitive type but might also have to store a null, then Integer will be better for you than int.

Just make sure you understand these implications and … be (type ) safe!