What is the purpose of using wrapper classes in programming?

Wrapper classes in programming are used to encapsulate primitive data types into objects. In Java, for example, primitives (int, boolean, char, etc.) are not objects, but wrapper classes (Integer, Boolean, Character, etc.) allow them to be treated as objects.

Goals of using wrapper classes:

• Object-oriented programming: many APIs and collections work only with objects, so primitives need to be wrapped.
• Use in collections: for example, List<Integer> instead of List<int>.
• Methods and functionality: wrapper classes provide useful methods for conversion, comparison, parsing.
• Autoboxing and unboxing: the compiler automatically converts between primitives and their wrappers, simplifying code.

Example:

int a = 5;
Integer b = Integer.valueOf(a); // boxing
int c = b.intValue(); // unboxing

List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
list.add(a); // autoboxing

Thus, wrapper classes provide flexibility and compatibility with object-oriented structures.