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Pass arguments by reference vs. value

Pass arguments by reference vs. value - Java Tutorial

From the course: Java 8+ Essential Training: Syntax and Structure

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Pass arguments by reference vs. value

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- [Instructor] Whenever you're learning a programming language, you always have to ask the question when I create a variable and pass it to a function or a method, am I creating a copy of that variable or am I using a reference to the original variable? Every language has a different set of answers to this question, but in Java it's very consistent. When you pass a variable, you're always passing by copy. That is the method receives a copy of the variable. But there's an important wrinkle here. We're talking about the variable itself and not the object that the variable is referencing. That is a completely different question. When you pass primitive values, you're always creating a copy. In this example I have a method called increment value which receives an integer. It increments the value by one and then prints that value. Now when I call the method I start with an original value, I output that original value, then I call the increment value method and I print out the original…

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