Difference between arguments and parameters in Java [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What's the difference between an argument and a parameter?

I was going through some interview questions. I wasn't able to come up with a solid answer to this question:

Difference between arguments and parameters in Java?
How are they different?

Answer 1

Generally a parameter is what appears in the definition of the method. An argument is the instance passed to the method during runtime.

You can see a description here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameter_(computer_programming)#Parameters_and_arguments

Answer 2

The term parameter refers to any declaration within the parentheses following the method/function name in a method/function declaration or definition; the term argument refers to any expression within the parentheses of a method/function call. i.e.

1. parameter used in function/method definition.
2. arguments used in function/method call.

Please have a look at the below example for better understanding:

package com.stackoverflow.works;  public class ArithmeticOperations {      public static int add(int x, int y) { //x, y are parameters here         return x + y;     }      public static void main(String[] args) {         int x = 10;         int y = 20;         int sum = add(x, y); //x, y are arguments here         System.out.println("SUM IS: " +sum);     }  } 

Thank you!