Clone

NAME

Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes

SYNOPSIS

use Clone 'clone';
my $data = {
set => [ 1 .. 50 ],
foo => {
answer => 42,
object => SomeObject->new,
},
};
my $cloned_data = clone($data);
$cloned_data->{foo}{answer} = 1;
print $cloned_data->{foo}{answer}; # '1'
print $data->{foo}{answer}; # '42'

You can also add it to your class:

package Foo;
use parent 'Clone';
sub new { bless {}, shift }
package main;
my $obj = Foo->new;
my $copy = $obj->clone;

DESCRIPTION

This module provides a "clone()" method which makes recursive copies of nested hash, array, scalar and reference types, including tied variables and objects.

"clone()" takes a scalar argument and duplicates it. To duplicate lists, arrays or hashes, pass them in by reference, e.g.

my $copy = clone (\@array);
# or
my %copy = %{ clone (\%hash) };

SEE ALSO

Storable’s "dclone()" is a flexible solution for cloning variables, albeit slower for average-sized data structures. Simple and naive benchmarks show that Clone is faster for data structures with 3 or fewer levels, while "dclone()" can be faster for structures 4 or more levels deep.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2001-2022 Ray Finch. All Rights Reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

Ray Finch "<rdf AT cpan DOT org>"

Breno G. de Oliveira "<garu AT cpan DOT org>", Nicolas Rochelemagne "<atoomic AT cpan DOT org>" and Florian Ragwitz "<rafl AT debian DOT org>" perform routine maintenance releases since 2012.