Why java does not support pointer?

Answer 1

This was a design decision taken by the creators of the Java programming language. Pointers is a C concept that allows access to the system memory to the programmers. This created a lot of chaos and problems and everyone who has ever written a program in the C language will accept that. To avoid this pandoras box of problems, the creators of java decided to not support pointers in the java language.

Answer 2

Pointers are considered by some to be insecure and inherently unsafe. By removing the ability to access memory directly at the programming level, it reduces the likelihood that a program will accidentally access memory it should not be able to, causing the application to crash, or worse, causing a crash in the host system. Additionally, as Java can run on multiple platforms, and those platforms may lay out memory differently, it would mean that Java programmers would have to pay attention to "endianess", which would be detrimental to Java's success; in C++, for example, programmers were always required to check the endianess in their code before it could do anything with pointers (if they cared to be portable). By leaving pointer management to the underlying software (the JavaVM), developers can worry more about writing functional code than having to worry about all the details about the many platforms Java can run on.