C++ Pointers to Pointers in Java

Question

I am a Java noob. I have been able to grasp the concept of converting C/C++ pointers into Java references and this has gone fairly smoothly. I hit a piece of code that has pointers to pointers (ie **ptr). I need to dereference the pointer and change the value of the pointer it is pointing to (ie *ptr = &newthing;) This seems alot tougher in java. Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this issue? Quick google search turned up nothing. Here's a code example in C++. I want to get something similar working in java but the ptr_to_ptr variable is a problem: ``` struct _coord { int x; int y; _coord * next_coordinate; } coordinate_t; coordinate_t buffer[100]; coordinate_t * head; coordinate_t ** ptr_to_ptr; if (wednesday) { ptr_to_ptr = &head; } else { ptr_to_ptr = &head->next_coordinate; } *ptr_to_ptr = &buffer[3]; // <<<---- HOW DO YOU MAKE THIS WORK? ```

Accepted Answer

I'll answer my own question. I could not find any easy way to do a pointer to a pointer (reference to a reference) in java. So I refactored the code to use arrays of references, and array indices instead of pointers. I think this will work (it coded easily) but I have not tested it yet.

C++ Pointers to Pointers in Java

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