To Boolean or not to bool. Which one is better?

Question

Is there a reason why there is an option for a Boolean and a bool? I dont seem to see the difference.

Answer 1

Edit by 280Z28: FOR THE DOWNVOTERS: The question originally specified Java, which makes this answer correct at the time it was posted. /end 280Z28

Boolean can take on the value null, boolean cannot.

Answer 2

In Java, Boolean is a class and bool is a primitive. Even though Java supports autoboxing this only masks the syntactic inconvenience but does not convey the performance hit involved. In Java, it is important to know the difference between the two and when it matters.

In C#, bool is simply an alias for System.Boolean - they are synonymous and can be used interchangeably. The compiler will actually translate all instances of the bool keyword into System.Boolean in the resulting IL. However, while the compiled types are the same, the designers of C# intended users to express language primitives using their short form names (bool, int, etc.). So the "C# way of doing things" is using bool over System.Boolean.

Answer 3

Java: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1295170/gwt-java-difference-between-boolean-and-boolean/1295218#1295218

C#: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/134746/what-is-the-difference-between-bool-and-boolean-types-in-c/134771#134771

PHP doesn't have either bool or Boolean, so it is kind of hard to talk about it ;-) In PHP, all non-null, non-'0' expressions are true, and everything else is false… very similar to most "older" languages.