Java: recommended solution for deep cloning/copying an instance

Question

I\'m wondering if there is a recommended way of doing deep clone/copy of instance in java.

I have 3 solutions in mind, but I can have miss some, and I\'d like to ha

Answer 1

Joshua Bloch's book has a whole chapter entitled "Item 10: Override Clone Judiciously" in which he goes into why overriding clone for the most part is a bad idea because the Java spec for it creates many problems.

He provides a few alternatives:

• Use a factory pattern in place of a constructor:

       public static Yum newInstance(Yum yum);
  

• Use a copy constructor:

       public Yum(Yum yum);
  

All of the collection classes in Java support the copy constructor (e.g. new ArrayList(l);)