Question

Are object variables pointers? If I declare an object variable and then assign another object to it, do I have one object or two?

Specifically what I need to do is in Android, I want to capture a location object and set it aside to compare to the next location object that comes along.

Answer 1

You have one object, with two references. Specifically,

int[] a = {1, 2};
int[] b = a;
a[0] = 17;
System.out.println(b[0]); // 17

You would need to explicitly clone an object (if it is Cloneable) or copy its contents in some other way to create a non-shared new instance.