What is the radix parameter in Java, and how does it work?

I understand that radix for the function Integer.parseInt() is the base to convert the string into. Shouldn't 11 base 10 converted with a radix/base 16 be a B instead of 17?

The following code prints 17 according to the textbook:

public class Test {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println( Integer.parseInt("11", 16) );
  }
}

When you perform the ParseInt operation with the radix, the 11 base 16 is parsed as 17, which is a simple value. It is then printed as radix 10.

You want:

System.out.println(Integer.toString(11, 16));

This takes the decimal value 11(not having a base at the moment, like having "eleven" watermelons(one more than the number of fingers a person has)) and prints it with radix 16, resulting in B.

When we take an int value it's stored as base 2 within the computer's physical memory (in nearly all cases) but this is irrelevant since the parse and tostring conversions work with an arbitrary radix (10 by default).

It's actually taking 11 in hex and converting it to decimal. So for example if you had the same code but with "A" in the string, it would output 10.

Here,

public class Test {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
      System.out.println(Integer.parseInt("11", 16));
    }
}

11 is 16 based number and should be converted at 10 i.e decimal.

 So, integer of (11)16 = 1*16^1 +1*16^0 = 16+1 = 17