Shallow copy: If a shallow copy is performed on object then it is copied but its contained objects are not. The contained objects are affected by changes to cloned object. Java supports shallow cloning of objects by default when a class implements the java.lang.Cloneable interface.
Deep copy: If a deep copy is performed on an object then not only object has been copied but the objects contained within it have been copied as well. Serialization can be used to achieve deep cloning. Deep cloning through serialization is faster to develop and easier to maintain but carries a performance overhead.
Deep copy: If a deep copy is performed on an object then not only object has been copied but the objects contained within it have been copied as well. Serialization can be used to achieve deep cloning. Deep cloning through serialization is faster to develop and easier to maintain but carries a performance overhead.
For example, invoking clone() method on a HashMap returns a shallow copy of HashMap instance, which means the keys and values themselves are not cloned. If you want a deep copy then a simple method is to serialize the HashMap to a ByteArrayOutputSream and then deserialize it. This creates a deep copy but does require that
all keys and values in the HashMap are Serializable. Its primary advantage is that it will deep copy any arbitrary object graph.
all keys and values in the HashMap are Serializable. Its primary advantage is that it will deep copy any arbitrary object graph.
