Access memory address in java

[Kingfisher]

Hi Friends,
I am programming in java, till now I am on the intermediate level in programming in java now. But I had some doubts in java, how to access the memory address in java. I think the memory allocation concept in java is little confusing. If I am not wrong there are no printers in java, like they are C language. The how to access the address of the memory, that is the value of the address.

[Dr. V]

Hello,
Yes, you are correct there are no pointers in java, but there are soft form of pointers in java, and they are called as references, though they are not exactly pointers, they are just references to memory allocation.
Suppose you create and object in java, just look at the following example

      Beta var1 = new Beta();
      Beta var2 = var1;
Beta var1 = new Beta(); Beta var2 = var1;

here both the objects var1 and var2 refer to the smae object which is of the class beta. I recommend you to try some examples and then you will understand this concept.

[Kingfisher]

Hello,
I am trying a program where I need to give the address of the memory to a variable. In some of the books I have read that, it is not impossible to access address of memory directly in java. Is this true, can the memeory address be accessed directly. If it is so, then please post me how can I do this? Doing this requires some special packages or some classes or interfaces, then I will import then.

[Dr. V]

Hello,
If you want to fetch the memory address to the variable, then you have to use the Object.toString() method. The Object.toString() method will return you the memory address. Just have a look at the example below.

      public static void main(String... args)
      {
      Object ob = new Object();
      System.out.println(ob.toString());
      }

Try using this method and then if you have any more problems then post back.

[Reegan]

Hello,

     public static void main(String... args)
      {
      Object ob = new Object();
      System.out.println(ob.toString());
      }

Yes, the above code will return you the memory address, but remember that it will be in the string format that is it will be the string representation of the memory address. This means that you can not access or modify the memory address directly. Like you can in c or c++. You can not allocate memory by a function directly in java. Though you can do it other way round, but not sure how effectively it works.

[Katty]

Hello,
If you want to print the address of the memory you can use the following example.

class Node {
int dt;
Node nt;
}
class Node { int dt; Node nt; }

This will make clear that how references are handled in java. Java does not give access to the address of the memory directly because, it is one of its security features. But it is not impossible to do it. Though it may be a long procedure to do it