if the object was originally declared const. Java's final is a strict rule such that it is impossible to compile code that directly breaks or bypasses the final restrictions. Using reflection, however, it is often possible to still modify final variables. This feature is mostly made use of when deserializing objects with final members. Further, because C and C++ expose pointers and references directly, there is a distinction between whether the pointer itself is constant, and whether the data pointed to by the pointer is constant. Applying const to a pointer itself, as in SomeClass * const ptr, means that the contents being referenced can be modified, but the reference itself cannot (without casting). This usage results in behaviour which mimics the behaviour of a final variable reference in Java. By contrast, when applying const to the referenced data only, as in const SomeClass * ptr, the contents cannot be modified (without casting), but the reference itself can. Both the reference and the contents being referenced can be declared as const. C# analogs for final keyword C# can be considered as similar to Java, in terms of its language features and basic syntax: Java has JVM, C# has .Net Framework; Java has bytecode, C# has MSIL; Java has no pointers (real memory) support, C# is the same. Regarding the final keyword, C# has two related keywords: The equivalent keyword for methods and classes is sealed The equivalent keyword for variables is readonly Note that a key difference between the C/C++ derived keyword const and the C# keyword readonly is that const is evaluated at compile time, while readonly is evaluated at runtime, and thus can have an expression that is only calculated and fixed later (at runtime). References Java (programming language) Articles with example Java code