CHAPTER 26 — Object References

This chapter discusses object reference variables and the objects they refer to. This is a crucial concept in programming. It can be confusing. It demands careful study. This chapter was written as my best effort to answer the questions of floundering students.

Chapter Topics:

• Primitive data types, and objects.
• Object references and object reference variables.
• Copying object references.
• The == operator and object references.
• The equals() operator for strings.

Chapter five discusses the idea of a data type in Java:

Computer memory stores bit patterns. A particular pattern has meaning only when you know what type of value it represents, and what scheme is being used to represent values with patterns. The scheme that is being used for a particular section of memory is a data type.

If these ideas have gotten fuzzy, you may wish to review chapter five.