How to clone ArrayList and also clone its contents?

Question

How can I clone an ArrayList and also clone its items in Java?

For example I have:

ArrayList dogs = getDogs();
ArrayList

        

Answer 1

A nasty way is to do it with reflection. Something like this worked for me.

public static  List deepCloneList(List original) {
    if (original == null || original.size() < 1) {
        return new ArrayList<>();
    }

    try {
        int originalSize = original.size();
        Method cloneMethod = original.get(0).getClass().getDeclaredMethod("clone");
        List clonedList = new ArrayList<>();

        // noinspection ForLoopReplaceableByForEach
        for (int i = 0; i < originalSize; i++) {
            // noinspection unchecked
            clonedList.add((T) cloneMethod.invoke(original.get(i)));
        }
        return clonedList;
    } catch (NoSuchMethodException | InvocationTargetException | IllegalAccessException e) {
        System.err.println("Couldn't clone list due to " + e.getMessage());
        return new ArrayList<>();
    }
}