Object::DeepClone

Section: ET++ method description (n)
Updated: automatically Fri Mar 1 10:54:57 1991
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NAME

Object::DeepClone - instance method

TEMPLATE

deepClone = ObjPtr DeepClone()

SPECIFIERS

public virtual

DESCRIPTION

Returns a deep copy of the receiver. In contrast to the method Clone, it recursively applies DeepClone for all part objects of the receiver.
So the deepClone is a copy of the object graph originating in the receiver. Note that a referenced object shall not be not necessarily deep-cloned. This is the case, for example, if the referenced object is not part of the receiver, but acquainted to it only. Acquainted objects are objects providing some services, for instance. The deep-clone may either share such an object with the source object, or may have set the corresponding instance variable to nil.
The default implementation uses Object Input/Output to do the job. Thus, it depends on the implementation of the method PrintOn and the method ReadFrom. Except for objects that must not be instantiated more than once (so-called atoms, like Styles for instance) even if they are written or read via object i/o, there are no examples in ET++ where the semantics of ReadFrom and PrintOn for a certain class would be not appropriate for deep-cloning, too.
But it is not excluded (until proven the opposite), that such a difference might be the case.
Doing Object I/O for atoms is extremely difficult in ET++ V2.2. In the future, there will be support for that.
Because copying with Object I/O is rather slow, this method may be overridden for small and less complex objects like it is done by the class ObjInt or the class BitSet. Method is rarely overridden.

ARGUMENTS

none

RETURN ARGUMENT

ObjPtr deepClone: a deep copy of the object

FIRST DEFINITION

class Object

FILES

implementation:: Object.C

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Time: 00:40:25 GMT, March 30, 2022