First and foremost, the “pass by value vs. pass by reference” distinction as defined in the CS theory is now obsolete because the technique originally defined as “pass by reference” has since fallen out of favor and is seldom used now.1 Newer languages2 tend to use a different (but similar) pair of techniques to achieve … Read more
It’s interesting in JavaScript. Consider this example: function changeStuff(a, b, c) { a = a * 10; b.item = “changed”; c = {item: “changed”}; } var num = 10; var obj1 = {item: “unchanged”}; var obj2 = {item: “unchanged”}; changeStuff(num, obj1, obj2); console.log(num); console.log(obj1.item); console.log(obj2.item); This produces the output: 10 changed unchanged If obj1 was … Read more
Arguments are passed by assignment. The rationale behind this is twofold: the parameter passed in is actually a reference to an object (but the reference is passed by value) some data types are mutable, but others aren’t So: If you pass a mutable object into a method, the method gets a reference to that same … Read more