Editing Reference (computer science) (section)

===Object-oriented languages===
A number of object-oriented languages such as [[Eiffel (programming language)|Eiffel]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], and [[Visual Basic]] have adopted a much more opaque type of reference, usually referred to as simply a ''reference''. These references have types like C pointers indicating how to interpret the data they reference, but they are typesafe in that they cannot be interpreted as a raw address and unsafe conversions are not permitted. References are extensively used to access and [[Assignment (computer science)#Assignment in object oriented languages|assign]] objects. References are also used in function/[[Method (computer programming)|method]] calls or message passing, and [[Reference counting|reference counts]] are frequently used to perform [[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]] of unused objects.