Delphi Basics .Net : System.ICloneable

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System.ICloneable Interface

Description

Cloning is the process of making a new object instance (rather than reference to an existing instance) that contains a clone of the contents of the original object instance.

The ICloneable interface provides just the Clone method that must be implemented.

In general, cloning has two forms :

Shallow	Top level objects are copied in value, lower levels by reference
Deep	All objects are copied in value

It is entirely up to the discretion of the implementing class as to which approach they take. For example, the Array Clone method is a shallow copy.

Be wary about shallow copies - updating lower level objects affects both the current (cloned) and original objects.

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System
System.ICloneable