Question

You can do it in .NET by using the keyword ‘ref’. Is there any way to do so in Java?

Answer 1

What are you doing in your method? If you’re merely populating an existing array, then you don’t need pass-by-reference semantics – either in .NET or in Java. In both cases, the reference will be passed by value – so changes to the object will be visible by the caller. That’s like telling someone the address of your house and asking them to deliver something to it – no problem.

If you really want pass-by-reference semantics, i.e. the caller will see any changes made to the parameter itself, e.g. setting it to null or a reference to a different byte array, then either method needs to return the new value, or you need to pass a reference to some sort of ‘holder’ which contains a reference to the byte array, and which can have the (possibly changed) reference grabbed from it later.

In other words, if your method looks likes this:

public void doSomething(byte[] data) {     for (int i=0; i < data.length; i++)     {         data[i] = (byte) i;     } } 

then you’re fine. If your method looks like this:

public void createArray(byte[] data, int length) {     // Eek! Change to parameter won't get seen by caller     data = new byte[length];      for (int i=0; i < data.length; i++)     {         data[i] = (byte) i;     } } 

then you need to change it to either:

public byte[] createArray(int length) {     byte[] data = new byte[length];      for (int i=0; i < data.length; i++)     {         data[i] = (byte) i;     }     return data; } 

or:

public class Holder<T> {     public T value; // Use a property in real code! }  public void createArray(Holder<byte[]> holder, int length) {     holder.value = new byte[length];      for (int i=0; i < length; i++)     {         holder.value[i] = (byte) i;     } } 

For more details, read Parameter passing in C# and Parameter passing in Java. (The former is better written than the latter, I’m afraid. One day I’ll get round to doing an update.)