Why need Integer class ?

[Tom Salo]

(int) VarName // Standard Type Casting
(Integer) VarName // Is it still casting ?
Why do we need (Integer) class ?
When do we apply with it ?
Example please.

[Dave Vick]

Tom
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Tom, a more appropriate question is why are there primitives if Java is supposed to be an object oriented language. The primitives are there to speed things up and allow the compiler to make optimizations. In a pure object oriented language there qwould be no primitives and you would only have the objects (Integer, Double, Boolean, etc. ).
A big use is in collections that can only hold objects you can not put an int there but an Integer works just fine.
hope that helps

[Bert Bates]

All of the primitive types have their own 'wrapper' class so that whenever you want to treat any of your primitives like an object you can 'wrap' them in an object.

[Igor Ko]

You have to use instead of primitive type (int,
float, double,...) wrapper classes if you use
it with Vector, Hashtable, ArrayList, Map, ... etc. Because in standard Java no exist Vector of
int, only Vector of Object.
(Of course exists a lot of non-standard implementation of int vector, because it's
important sometime to optimize code; wrapping isn't time and memory effective).
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As I understand will be in java 1.5 template
construction like Vector<...> is only syntax sugar. (I read somewhere that it will be the same
container library: Vector, Hashtable... for template and non-template syntax usage)
And doesn't solve the problem.
Am I right ?