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what is the difference between the pointer in C and the reference type injava

24th Jan 2017, 5:17 AM
Ralph Haides
Ralph Haides - avatar
1 Answer
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A full answer can be found indepth on StackExchange by Joachim Sauer, so here is my short summary. Pointers in C can perform pointer arithmetic, whereas java references can not. As you can't manipulate the underlying value of a reference in Java. Java references are strongly typed. Whereas a pointer in C can be cast from int* to char*. In Java you can cast an Object ref to a String, only if that Object is actually a String This makes Pointers in C more flexible/powerful than Java References. However, this also means that Pointers in C are more dangerous.
26th Jan 2017, 3:07 PM
Erik Verduin
Erik Verduin - avatar