What is return type object?

User-defined functions and class methods can define return types as object references (as class or interface types). When an object is passed locally, class instances are always returned by reference. Thus, only a reference to an object is returned, not the object itself.

In Java, the prototype of a method must contain a return type always based on the data type specified in the declaration . Below is the code block to explain the function of returning a string. In the driver class above, there is a private function that returns a String value.

“In order to return an object from a Java method, you must first declare a variable to hold a reference to the object .” So in this case, Ball is a variable that is a reference to the object. Correct? redBall is a reference to the object created by the new Ball(“red”) statement.

Yes, a class can have a method that returns an instance of itself .