Why doesn't Integer.valueOf of a digit Character return its value?

The ASCII representation should give you a clue about why you are getting this behaviour.

Remember that the Integer and Character classes are wrappers for the int and char primitive types. The reason why Integer.valueOf() works with a Character is that there is an implicit cast to Integer. When you cast a Character to Integer, the Integer will hold the ASCII code for that Character. The same thing happens with primitive types. For example

 Character yourChar = new Character('2');
 Integer yourInt = Integer.valueOf(yourChar);    //Implicit casting

 char biz = '2';
 int baz = (int)biz;                            //Explicit casting to int

 System.out.println(baz);
 System.out.println(yourInt);

Here, the value of both yourInt and baz will be 50, because that is the ASCII code for '2'. The implicit and explicit casting do the same thing.

If you actually want to convert a char which holds a digit to the correct integer, use Character.getNumericValue(). E.g.

 char myChar = '2';
 int myInt = Character.getNumericValue(myChar);

Now myInt holds the value 2.

As far as best-practices go, using this type of implicit conversion isn't a good idea. It doesn't make it obvious what you are trying to do.

Integer.valueOf(char)) gives the ASCII value.

Integer.valueOf('2');  // >>> 50

If you want to get numeric value then,

Character.getNumericValue('2'));  // >>> 2