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Autoboxing on the other hand, can also produce subtle effects. It works by automatically wrapping the primitive type to the corresponding wrapper object. Some care Care should be taken during this process, especially when performing comparisons. The Java Language Specification Section 5.1.7 Boxing Conversion explains this point clearlywhich values can be safely compared:

If the value p being boxed is true, false, a byte, a char in the range \u0000 to \u007f, or an int or short number between -128 and 127, then let r1 and r2 be the results of any two boxing conversions of p. It is always the case that r1 == r2.

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This noncompliant code example (adopted from \[[Bloch 2009|AA. Bibliography#Bloch 09]\]), defines a {{Comparator}} with a {{compare()}} method. The {{compare()}} method accepts two boxed primitives as arguments. 

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To be compliant, use any of the four comparison operators <, >, <= and >= since these force the values to be automatically unboxed. The == and != operators should not be used to compare boxed primitives.

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