Is Java Pass by Reference or Pass by Value?

The Java Spec says that everything in Java is pass-by-value. There is no such thing as "pass-by-reference" in Java.

The difficult thing can be to understand that Java passes "objects as references" passed by value.

This can certainly get confusing and I would recommend reading this article from an expert: http://javadude.com/articles/passbyvalue.htm Also read this interesting thread with example on StackOverflow : Java Pass By Ref or Value