What features of the Java language help people build secure applets?
• Java programs do not use pointers explicitly. Objects are accessed by getting a handle to the object. Effectively, this is like getting a pointer to an object, but Java does not allow the equivalent of pointer arithmetic on object handles. Object handles cannot be modified in any way by the Java applet or application. • C and C++ programmers are used to manipulating pointers to implement strings and to implement arrays. Java has high-level support for both strings and arrays, so programmers don’t need to resort to pointer arithmetic in order to use those data structures. • Arrays are bounds-checked at runtime. Using a negative index causes a runtime exception, and using an index that is larger than the size of the array causes a runtime exception. Once an array object is created, its length never changes. • Strings in Java are immutable. A string is zero or more characters enclosed in double quotes, and it’s an instance of the String class.
• Java programs do not use pointers explicitly. Objects are accessed by getting a handle to the object. Effectively, this is like getting a pointer to an object, but Java does not allow the equivalent of pointer arithmetic on object handles. Object handles cannot be modified in any way by the Java applet or application. • C and C++ programmers are used to manipulating pointers to implement strings and to implement arrays. Java has high-level support for both strings and arrays, so programmers don’t need to resort to pointer arithmetic in order to use those data structures. • Arrays are bounds-checked at runtime. Using a negative index causes a runtime exception, and using an index that is larger than the size of the array causes a runtime exception. Once an array object is created, its length never changes. • Strings in Java are immutable. A string is zero or more characters enclosed in double quotes, and it’s an instance of the String class. Using immutable strings can help prevent co
