Copy Custom Objects

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jules
  • Start date Start date
J

Jules

I have a cutom object ex.:
public class Client
{
public string Name;
public string Id;
public Adresses Adresses;

public Client()
{
}
}

Client cl = new Client();
cl.Name = "xx";
cl.Adresses.add(adres);
....

Now I want a second client that is a copy of this first
client (not a reference to this first client, it must be
a stand alone copy, with no references to the first).

How I have to do that. Do I have to implement a Copy
method on the class Client? And also a copy on de Class
adresses (who is a collection).
Or are there other ways to simple copy the contents of an
object in an other object??


Jules
 
There is no simple way to do this other than writing the
code yourself. Typically, you would implement
ICloneable.Clone() to clone your Client object.

Tu-Thach
 
That is pretty much what I did to get around this issue.
Implement the ICloneable interface, and within the Clone
method, create a NEW instance of the class and set all the
variables to match the original. If you have objects in
the class, such as ArrayList's, iterate through the list
and copy the data, do not copy the object as a whole or
it'll be a reference as well.

A little testing should let you know if this worked
correctly or not.

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,
Chris
 
Tu-Thach said:
There is no simple way to do this other than writing the
code yourself. Typically, you would implement
ICloneable.Clone() to clone your Client object.
Click to expand...

The only possible problem with this approach is the added cost of maintaining
the Clone method if you had to modify the class, which isn't much of a problem
once you have the method implemented.

Another possible approach--one that I have used previously--is to mark the
class in question as serializable, and inside the Clone method seralize the
source object into a MemoryStream object, then deserialize it into the copied
object. Works like a charm, if you don't mind the possible performance
overhead, which shouldn't be significant.

-LM
 
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