Boxing and Unboxing

Boxing and Unboxing

It's better to say that boxing (and unboxing) is a specialised form of casting or type-casting. In .NET, every class derives from the "object" class. Since the "object" class is the base class of all objects, any object can be cast to the type "object" and then reconverted to the specific type. The conversion from specific type to "object" is called boxing and the reverse is called unboxing. Unlike traditional casting, any object or datatype can be boxed and unboxed. In traditional casting, there are certain limitations. For example, string type cannot be cast into, say, int type. But any object or variable can be cast to "object". So in simple terms, boxing is casting from specialised type to type "object" and unboxing is the reverse. Regards, Mitesh Mehta Microsoft Certified Professional miteshvmehta@gmail.com