From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2012-09-19T06:08:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Bug or feature

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Damjan Rems <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
> Robert Klemme wrote in post #1076432:
>
>> For full object tree copy you can do
>>
>> irb(main):007:0> c = Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(a))
>
> Why is real cloning not implemented in ruby, since this fake cloning can
> lead to a lot of troubles.

What do you mean - "real cloning"?  Shallow copy is as real as deep
copy.  They are just different concepts.  If you think about it for a
moment a deep copy is significantly more difficult to realize
(especially with object graphs which have different paths to the same
instance).  It is totally reasonable to provide a shallow copy as
default - btw. Java does it, too.

And you can simply create your deep copy method:

class Object
  def clone_deep
    Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(self))
  end
end

Kind regards

robert


-- 
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