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JavaAdvanced#oop#interface
JavaIntermediate#oop#fundamentals
What is the difference between shallow copy and deep copy in Java?
A shallow copy duplicates an object's fields but for reference-type fields, copies only the reference (both objects share the same nested object). A deep copy recursively duplicates nested objects too, so the copies are fully independent.
Example
class Person implements Cloneable {
List<String> hobbies;
public Person clone() {
// shallow: shares hobbies list
// deep would need: new ArrayList<>(hobbies)
}
}