My understanding is that this is actually very simple:
- Javascript is always pass by value, but when a variable refers to an object (including arrays), the “value” is a reference to the object.
- Changing the value of a variable never changes the underlying primitive or object, it just points the variable to a new primitive or object.
- However, changing a property of an object referenced by a variable does change the underlying object.
So, to work through some of your examples:
function f(a,b,c) {
// Argument a is re-assigned to a new value.
// The object or primitive referenced by the original a is unchanged.
a = 3;
// Calling b.push changes its properties - it adds
// a new property b[b.length] with the value "foo".
// So the object referenced by b has been changed.
b.push("foo");
// The "first" property of argument c has been changed.
// So the object referenced by c has been changed (unless c is a primitive)
c.first = false;
}
var x = 4;
var y = ["eeny", "miny", "mo"];
var z = {first: true};
f(x,y,z);
console.log(x, y, z.first); // 4, ["eeny", "miny", "mo", "foo"], false
Example 2:
var a = ["1", "2", {foo:"bar"}];
var b = a[1]; // b is now "2";
var c = a[2]; // c now references {foo:"bar"}
a[1] = "4"; // a is now ["1", "4", {foo:"bar"}]; b still has the value
// it had at the time of assignment
a[2] = "5"; // a is now ["1", "4", "5"]; c still has the value
// it had at the time of assignment, i.e. a reference to
// the object {foo:"bar"}
console.log(b, c.foo); // "2" "bar"