Welcome. Parameter passing in Java - by reference or by value? This page is gradually growing as the topic comes up more and more often on the Java newsgroups. It is now in three sections: My own answer (directly below) Dale King's formal analysisChris Smith's "workaround" post which lists some of the ways of avoiding needing pass-by-reference semantics in the first place Parameter passing in Java - by reference or by value?
This is another common question on Java newsgroups, made worse by the fact that people who should know better still perpetuate the following myth: Myth: "Objects are passed by reference, primitives are passed by value" Why learning Arabic is so hard. - Robert Lane Greene - Slate Mag. When I walked into Arabic class last week, Karam, my teacher, cheerily asked me how I was doing.
I said, "Tamaam, hamdulillah," which means, "Fine, thanks be to God. " But I was lying. I'd just spent a full day at work and was sitting down at a desk for two hours of mind-bending grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.