What is the difference between a pointer and a reference variable in Java?

Question

My Java book explains that to use objects, we can assign them to reference variables. How is that different from a pointer to an object? Does Java have pointers?

T

Answer 1

Cat x = new Cat();

This line creates a Cat object in memory and stores a reference to it in x.

x now contains a reference to the Cat object, but if you were to do:

x = x + 1;

This would not give the next memory address like in C, but would give a compiler error. Java doesn't allow control to the reference or memory location.