Can you explain the concept of Boxing in the context of programming languages?

Boxing is the process of packaging a value type, such as int or struct, into a reference type object, usually object in C#. This allows primitive types to be treated as objects.

When a value type is boxed, it is placed on the heap and represented as an object. This is useful, for example, when working with collections that store objects (object), or when using methods that expect objects.

Example:

int number = 123;          // value type
object boxed = number;     // boxing — packaging into an object

int unboxed = (int)boxed;  // unboxing — extracting the value

Boxing and unboxing affect performance, so they should be used consciously.