What´s the difference between AtomicReference<Integer> vs. AtomicInteger?

Question

I don´t get the difference between these two:

AtomicReference<Integer> atomicReference = new AtomicReference<>(1);

vs.

AtomicInteger atomicInteger = new AtomicInteger(1);

Can someone generally say when to use AtomicReference? Hope someone can help me. Thanks.

Answer 1

A very important difference is that the methods compareAndSet and weakCompareAndSet have different semantics for AtomicReference<Integer> than they do for AtomicInteger. This is because with AtomicReference<Integer>, those methods use == for comparing and two Integer objects can be equal without being ==. With AtomicInteger, the comparison is of the integer value equality, not reference identity.

As others have pointed out, AtomicInteger has additional features not available with AtomicReference<Integer>. Also, AtomicInteger extends Number, so it inherits all the Number methods (doubleValue(), etc.) and can be used whenever a Number is expected.