Differentiate between Boxing and Unboxing in .NET - ablealias/asp.net GitHub Wiki

When a value type is converted to an object type, the process is known as boxing; whereas, when an object type is converted to a value type, the process is known as unboxing. Boxing and unboxing enable value types to be treated as objects. Boxing a value type packages it inside an instance of the Object reference type. This allows the value type to be stored on the garbage collected heap. Unboxing extracts the value type from the object. In this example, the integer variable i is boxed and assigned to object obj.

int i = 123; 
object obj = i; /* Thi line boxes i. */ 
/* The object obj can then be unboxed and assigned to integer variable i: */ 
i = (int)obj; // unboxing