Can you explain the concepts of boxing and unboxing in the context of data types?

Boxing and unboxing are processes of converting between value types and reference types in C#.

• Boxing is the process of wrapping a value type (e.g., int) into an object of type object. This creates an object on the heap containing a copy of the value.
• Unboxing is the process of extracting the value from the object back into a value type.

Example:

int number = 123;          // value type
object boxed = number;     // boxing
int unboxed = (int)boxed;  // unboxing

Boxing and unboxing are useful when working with generic collections or APIs that accept objects, but they impact performance due to memory allocation and copying.