Java How to Program, Early Objects, 11th Edition

7.9 Pass-By-Value vs. Pass-By-Reference

The preceding example demonstrated how arrays and primitive-type array elements are passed as arguments to methods. We now take a closer look at how arguments in general are passed to methods. Two ways to pass arguments in method calls in many programming languages are pass-by-value and pass-by-reference (sometimes called call-by-value and call-by-reference). When an argument is passed by value, a copy of the argument’s value is passed to the called method. The called method works exclusively with the copy. Changes to the called method’s copy do not affect the original variable’s value in the caller.

When an argument is passed by reference, the called method can access the argument’s value in the caller ...