Is JavaScript a pass-by-reference or pass-by-value language?

Question

The primitive types (number, string, etc.) are passed by value, but objects are unknown, because they can be both passed-by-value (in case we consider that a variable holding an object is in fact a reference to the object) and passed-by-reference (when we consider that the variable to the object holds the object itself).

Although it doesn't really matter at the end, I want to know what is the correct way to present the arguments passing conventions. Is there an excerpt from JavaScript specification, which defines what should be the semantics regarding this?

Answer 1

It's interesting in JavaScript. Consider this example:

function changeStuff(a, b, c)
{
  a = a * 10;
  b.item = "changed";
  c = {item: "changed"};
}

var num = 10;
var obj1 = {item: "unchanged"};
var obj2 = {item: "unchanged"};

changeStuff(num, obj1, obj2);

console.log(num);
console.log(obj1.item);
console.log(obj2.item);