What is the difference between shallow copy, deepcopy and normal assignment operation?

Question

import copy

a = \"deepak\"
b = 1, 2, 3, 4
c = [1, 2, 3, 4]
d = {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30}

a1 = copy.copy(a)
b1 = copy.copy(b)
c1 = copy.copy(c)
d1 = copy.copy(d)


prin         


        

Answer 1

Deep copy is related to nested structures. If you have list of lists, then deepcopy copies the nested lists also, so it is a recursive copy. With just copy, you have a new outer list, but inner lists are references. Assignment does not copy. For Ex

import copy
spam = [[0, 1, 2, 3], 4, 5]
cheese = copy.copy(spam)
cheese.append(3)
cheese[0].append(3)
print(spam)
print(cheese)

OutPut

[[0, 1, 2, 3, 3], 4, 5] [[0, 1, 2, 3, 3], 4, 5, 3] Copy method copy content of outer list to new list but inner list is still same for both list so if you make changes in inner list of any lists it will affects both list.

But if you use Deep copy then it will create new instance for inner list too.

import copy
spam = [[0, 1, 2, 3], 4, 5]
cheese = copy.deepcopy(spam)
cheese.append(3)
cheese[0].append(3)
print(spam)
print(cheese)

Output

[0, 1, 2, 3] [[0, 1, 2, 3, 3], 4, 5, 3]