To make a long story short, Java objects have some very peculiar properties.

In general, Java has primitive types (int, bool, char, double, etc) that are passed directly by value. Then Java has objects (everything that derives from java.lang.Object). Objects are actually always handled through a reference (a reference being a pointer that you can't touch). That means that in effect, objects are passed by value, as the references are normally not interesting. It does however mean that you cannot change which object is pointed to as the reference itself is passed by value.

Does this sound strange and confusing? Let's consider how C implements pass by reference and pass by value. In C, the default convention is pass by value. void foo(int x) passes an int by value. void foo(int *x) is a function that does not want an int a, but a pointer to an int: foo(&a). One would use this with the & operator to pass a variable address.

Take this to C++, and we have references. References are basically (in this context) syntactic sugar that hide the pointer part of the equation: void foo(int &x) is called by foo(a), where the compiler itself knows that it is a reference and the address of the non-reference a should be passed. In Java, all variables referring to objects are actually of reference type, in effect forcing call by reference for most intends and purposes without the fine grained control (and complexity) afforded by, for example, C++.

To make a long story short, Java objects have some very peculiar properties.

In general, Java has primitive types (int, bool, char, double, etc) that are passed directly by value. Then Java has objects (everything that derives from java.lang.Object). Objects are actually always handled through a reference (a reference being a pointer that you can't touch). That means that in effect, objects are passed by reference, as the references are normally not interesting. It does however mean that you cannot change which object is pointed to as the reference itself is passed by value.

Does this sound strange and confusing? Let's consider how C implements pass by reference and pass by value. In C, the default convention is pass by value. void foo(int x) passes an int by value. void foo(int *x) is a function that does not want an int a, but a pointer to an int: foo(&a). One would use this with the & operator to pass a variable address.

Take this to C++, and we have references. References are basically (in this context) syntactic sugar that hide the pointer part of the equation: void foo(int &x) is called by foo(a), where the compiler itself knows that it is a reference and the address of the non-reference a should be passed. In Java, all variables referring to objects are actually of reference type, in effect forcing call by reference for most intends and purposes without the fine grained control (and complexity) afforded by, for example, C++.

To make a long story short, java objects have some very peculiar properties.

In general, java has primitive types (int, bool, char, double, etc) that are passed directly by value. Then java has objects (everything that derives from java.lang.Object). Objects are actually always handled through a reference (a reference being a pointer that you can't touch). That means that in effect, objects are passed by value, as the references are normally not interesting. It does however mean that you cannot change which object is pointed to as the reference itself is passed by value.

Does this sound strange and confusing? Let's consider how C implements pass by reference and pass by value. In C the default convention is pass by value. void foo(int x) passes an int by value. void foo(int *x) is a function that does not want an int a, but a pointer to an int: foo(&a). One would use this with the & operator to pass a variable address.

Take this to C++, and we have references. References are basically (in this context) syntactic sugar that hide the pointer part of the equation: void foo(int &x) is called by foo(a), where the compiler itself knows that it is a reference and the address of the non-reference a should be passed. In java, all variables referring to objects are actually of reference type, in effect forcing call by reference for most intends and purposes without the fine grained control (and complexity) afforded by e.g. C++.

To make a long story short, Java objects have some very peculiar properties.

In general, Java has primitive types (int, bool, char, double, etc) that are passed directly by value. Then Java has objects (everything that derives from java.lang.Object). Objects are actually always handled through a reference (a reference being a pointer that you can't touch). That means that in effect, objects are passed by value, as the references are normally not interesting. It does however mean that you cannot change which object is pointed to as the reference itself is passed by value.

Does this sound strange and confusing? Let's consider how C implements pass by reference and pass by value. In C, the default convention is pass by value. void foo(int x) passes an int by value. void foo(int *x) is a function that does not want an int a, but a pointer to an int: foo(&a). One would use this with the & operator to pass a variable address.

Take this to C++, and we have references. References are basically (in this context) syntactic sugar that hide the pointer part of the equation: void foo(int &x) is called by foo(a), where the compiler itself knows that it is a reference and the address of the non-reference a should be passed. In Java, all variables referring to objects are actually of reference type, in effect forcing call by reference for most intends and purposes without the fine grained control (and complexity) afforded by, for example, C++.