Difference between revisions of "Cloning"
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* The object class has a clone() method which is protected. So it has to be overriden in the implementing class in order to use it. | * The object class has a clone() method which is protected. So it has to be overriden in the implementing class in order to use it. | ||
* The default implementation can call super.clone() - but this means the class has to implement the Cloneable marker interface. | * The default implementation can call super.clone() - but this means the class has to implement the Cloneable marker interface. | ||
| + | * Object's clone() performs what is called a "shallow" copy - typically one level of copying. | ||
| + | * Deep copying means copying containing referenced objects as well. Of course we can keep going deeper, so "shallow" and "deep" are subjective terms and it is upto developer to implement. | ||
Revision as of 16:14, 22 June 2012
- There is no syntactical way to copy an object in Java. The assignment operator just's duplicates the reference.
- Cloning and the clone() method provides a way to perform such copying.
- The object class has a clone() method which is protected. So it has to be overriden in the implementing class in order to use it.
- The default implementation can call super.clone() - but this means the class has to implement the Cloneable marker interface.
- Object's clone() performs what is called a "shallow" copy - typically one level of copying.
- Deep copying means copying containing referenced objects as well. Of course we can keep going deeper, so "shallow" and "deep" are subjective terms and it is upto developer to implement.
