Editing Pointer (computer programming) (section)

===Java===
There is no explicit representation of pointers in [[Java (programming language)|Java]]. Instead, more complex data structures like [[Object-oriented programming|objects]] and [[Array data structure|arrays]] are implemented using [[reference (computer science)|references]]. The language does not provide any explicit pointer manipulation operators. It is still possible for code to attempt to dereference a null reference (null pointer), however, which results in a run-time [[exception handling|exception]] being thrown. The space occupied by unreferenced memory objects is recovered automatically by [[garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]] at run-time.<ref>Nick Parlante, [http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/102/PointersAndMemory.pdf#%22Pointers%20and%20Memory%22], [http://cslibrary.stanford.edu# Stanford Computer Science Education Library], pp. 9–10 (2000).</ref>