Question

This program gives 6 as output, but when I uncomment the line 9, output is 5. Why? I think b.a shouldn’t change, should remain 5 in main.

1  class C1{
2      int a=5;

3      public static void main(String args[]){
4          C1 b=new C1();
5          m1(b);
6          System.out.println(b.a);
7      }

8      static void m1(C1 c){
9          //c=new C1();
10         c.a=6;
11    }
12 }

Answer 1

When you pass object in Java they are passed as reference meaning object referenced by b in main method and c as argument in method m1, they both point to the same object, hence when you change the value to 6 it gets reflected in main method.

Now when you try to do c = new C1(); then you made c to point to a different object but b is still pointing to the object which you created in your main method hence the updated value 6 is not visible in main method and you get 5.