Boxing bool values

20 Jul 2024 20 Jul 2024 1 min read C# .NET Boxing

When boxing value types in C#/.NET, an object on the heap is created.

What happens when you box a bool value?

Since there are only two possible values, are the box objects reference equal?

The answer is: No. For example, boxing true twice results in different objects.

Consider this code:


var obj1 = (object)true;
var obj2 = (object)true;

Console.WriteLine(ReferenceEquals(obj1, obj2)); // prints "false"

There are not even BCL constants for true and false (unlike Java). This issue is behavior is discussed in this GitHub issue.