Object type - Definition and Overview

In computer science, an object type (a.k.a. wrapping object) is a datatype that is used in object-oriented programming to wrap a non-object type to make it look like an object.

Some object-oriented programming languages make a distinction between objects and non-objects, often referred to as primitive types for reasons such as runtime efficiency and syntax or semantic issues. For example, Java has object types corresponding to each primitive type: Integer and int, Character and char, Float and float, etc. Languages like C++ make little or no distinction between objects and non-objects, the use of object type is of little interest.

Boxing is a way to wrap objects with primitive types over object types so that they can be used like objects. Examples are Integer class for integer type in Java. Some languages require programmers to do boxing manually, while some support autoboxing/unboxing.