this piece of writing is reprinted from the following URL:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/data/numberclasses.html
just for the use of self learning.
- As an argument of a method that expects an object (often used when manipulating collections of numbers).
- To use constants defined by the class, such as
MIN_VALUE
andMAX_VALUE
, that provide the upper and lower bounds of the data type. - To use class methods for converting values to and from other primitive types, for converting to and from strings, and for converting between number systems (decimal, octal, hexadecimal, binary).