Similarities and Difference between Java and C++

Difficulty Level : Basic
Last Updated : 29 Jun, 2020

Nowadays Java and C++ programming languages are vastly using in competitive coding. Due to some awesome features, these two programming languages mostly used in Industry also. C++ is a widely popular language among coders for its efficiency, high speed, and dynamic memory utilization. Java is widely in the IT industry, It is incomparable with any other programming language in terms of software development.
Let’s go through the various points to compare these popular coding languages:

Similarities between Java and C++

Execution: At compile-time, Java source code or .java file is converted into bytecode or .class file. At runtime, JVM(Java Virtual Machine) will load the .class file and will convert it to machine code by the help of an interpreter. After compilation of method calls(using Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler), JVM will execute the optimized code. So Java is both compiled as well as an interpreted language.
On the other hand, C++ executes the code by using only a compiler. The C++ compiler compiles and converts the source code into the machine code. That’s why c++ is faster than Java but not platform-independent.

Below is the illustration of how Java and C++ code are executed:

Execution of a Java Code

Execution of C++ code

Features: C++ and Java both have several Object Oriented programming features which provide many useful programming functionalities. Some feature is supported by one and some are not.
Below is the table which shows the features supported and not supported by both the programming languages:

Features	C++	Java
Abstraction	Yes	Yes
Encapsulation	Yes	Yes
Single Inheritance	Yes	Yes
Multiple Inheritance	Yes	No
Polymorphism	Yes	Yes
Static Binding	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Binding	Yes	Yes
Operator Overloading	Yes	No
Header Files	Yes	No
Pointers	Yes	No
Global Variables	Yes	No
Template Class	Yes	No
Interference and Packages	No	Yes
API	No	Yes

Application: Both C++ and Java have vast areas of application. Below is the applicationd of both the languages:
- Application of C++ Programming language:
  1. Suitable for Developing large software(like, passenger resevation system).
  2. MySQL is written by C++.
  3. For fast exection C++ is majorly used in Game Development.
  4. Google Chromium browser, file system, cluster data processing are all written in C++.
  5. Adobe Premier, Photoshop and Illustrator these popular application are scripted in C++.
  6. Advance Computations and Graphics- real-time physical simulations, high-performance image processing.
  7. C++ also used in many advanced medical equipments like MRI machines, etc.
- Application of Java Programming language:
  1. Desktop GUI Applications development.
  2. Android and Mobile application development.
  3. Applications of Java are in embedded technologies like SIM cards, disk players, TV, etc.
  4. Java EE(Enterprise Edition) provides API and runtime environment for running large enterprise software.
  5. Network Applications and Web services like, Internet connection, Web App Development.
Environment: C++ is Platform dependent while Java is the platform-independent programming language. We have to write and run C++ code on the same platform. Java has the WORA(Write Once and Run Everywhere) feature by which we can write our code in one platform once and we can run the code anywhere.

Differences between Java and C++

Parameters	Java	C++
Founder	Java was developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems.	C++ was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs since 1979 as an extension of the C language.
First Release	On May 23, 1995	In October 1985
Stable Release	Java SE 14 or JDK 14 was released on March 17, 2020.	C++17 was released in December 2017.
Official Website	oracle.com/java	isocpp.org
Influenced By:	Java was Influenced by Ada 83, Pascal, C++, C# etc languages.	C++ was Influenced by Influenced by Ada, ALGOL 68, C, ML, Simula, Smalltalk etc language.
Influenced to:	Java was influenced to develop BeanShell, C#, Clojure, Groovy, Hack, J#, Kotlin, PHP, Python, Scala etc languages.	C++ was influenced to develop C99, Java, JS++, Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, Rust, Seed7 etc languages.
Platform Dependency	Platform independent, Java bytecode works on any operating System.	Platform dependent, should be compiled for different platform.
Portability	It can run in any OS hence it is portable.	C++ is platform dependent hence it is not portable.
Compilation	Java is both Compiled and Interpreted Language.	C++ is only Compiled Language.
Memory Management	Memory Management is System Controlled.	Memory Management in C++ is Manual.
Virtual Keyword	It doesn’t have Virtual Keyword.	It have Virtual Keyword.
Multiple Inheritance	It supports only single inheritance. Multiple inheritance achieved partially using interfaces.	It supports both single and multiple Inheritance.
Overloading	It supports only method overloading and doesn’t allow operator overloading.	It supports both methods and operators overloading.
Pointers	It supports limited support for pointers.	It strongly supports Pointer.
Libraries	It doesn’t support direct native library call, but through only Java Native Interfaces.	It supports direct system library calls, making it suitable for system-level programming.
Libraries	libraries have a wide range of classes for various high-level services	C++ libraries are comparatively with low level functionalities.
Documentation Comment	It supports documentation comment (e.g, /*.. /) for source code.	It doesn’t support documentation comment for source code.
Thread Support	Java supports documentation comment (e.g, /*.. /) for source code	C++ doesn’t have built-in support for threads, depends on third party threading libraries.
Type	Java is only object-oriented programming language.	C++ is both a procedural and object-oriented programing language.
Input-Output mechanism	Java uses the (System class) System.in for input and System.out for output.	C++ uses uses cin for input and cout for an Output operation.
goto Keyword	Java doesn’t support goto Keyword	C++ supports goto keyword.
Structures and Unions	Java doesn’t support Structures and Unions.	C++ supports Structures and Unions.
Parameter Passing	Java supports only Pass by Value technique.	C++ supports both Pass by Value and pass by reference.
Global Scope	It supports no global scope.	It supports both global scope and namespace scope.
Object Management	Automatic object management with garbage collection.	It supports manual object management using new and delete.

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