stupid question...waiting for a stupid answer

From:

Brandon McCombs <none@none.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:34:04 GMT

Message-ID:

<MprGg.67086$u11.22322@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com>

I'm wondering why I can't do the following and get my desired result:
//globals
private hasPhoneNumberChanged = false;

private void notifyChanges(boolean dirtyFlag) {
    dirtyFlag = true;
    setTitle("Object properties for: " + entryDN +
        " ---- Unsaved Changes");
    apply.setEnabled(true);
}

private class HomeOtherListener implements ActionListener {
    private JDialog owner = null;
    HomeOtherListener(JDialog d) {
        owner = d;
    }
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        EditOtherAttributes o = new EditOtherAttributes(owner,true,
                    otherHomePhone);
        o.setTitle("Home Number (Others)");
        if (!o.showEditOtherAttributesDialog())
-----> notifyChanges(hasPhoneNumberChanged);
    }
}

If I print out the value of hasPhoneNumberChanged before and after where
I call notifyChanges() the value of the boolean doesn't change. It only
changes within notifyChanges(). It seems as if a copy of the boolean
variable is being passed to notifyChanges() not a reference so that the
variable local to notifyChanges() is modified instead of my global variable.

Am I missing something? Should this work but in another form? Maybe I
should use String instead of boolean to pass by reference?

thanks
Brandon