Can a primitive object act as a key when using HashMap?

In Java, primitive types (int, boolean, char, etc.) cannot directly serve as keys in a HashMap because the key must be an object. However, thanks to autoboxing, primitives are automatically converted into their corresponding wrapper objects (for example, int to Integer), which can then be used as keys.

Example:

HashMap<Integer, String> map = new HashMap<>();
int key = 5;
map.put(key, "value"); // key is automatically boxed into Integer

Thus, a primitive object in the strict sense cannot be a key, but its object wrapper can.