Bug #14355: clone issue

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• Backport: 2.3: UNKNOWN, 2.4: UNKNOWN, 2.5: UNKNOWN

[Winklerbugs (Bart Winkler)]

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
aMutantSpeak = [[nil,nil],[nil,nil]]
aDogSpeak = aMutantSpeak.clone
aCatSpeak = aMutantSpeak.clone
aDogSpeak[0][0] = "W"
aCatSpeak[0][0] = "m"
aCatSpeak[0][1] = "e"
aDogSpeak[0][1] = "O"
aCatSpeak[1][0] = "o"
aDogSpeak[1][0] = "O"
aDogSpeak[1][1] = "F"
aCatSpeak[1][1] = "w"
print "aMutantSpeak ", aMutantSpeak
puts
print "aDogSpeak ", aDogSpeak
puts
print "aCatSpeak ", aCatSpeak

#all three arrays are now [["m","O"],["O","w"]]

This is what I wanted:

aMutantSpeak = [[nil,nil],[nil,nil]]

aDogSpeak = [["W","O"],["O","F"]]

aCatSpeak = [["m","e"],["o","w"]]

I think this is what clone should do.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

• Status changed from Open to Rejected
• ruby -v deleted (1.9.3 & 2.2.2)

As documented, Object#clone and Object#dup do shallow copies by default, so this behavior is expected. Create your own class and override initialize_copy (or initialize_dup and initialize_clone) as appropriate for the behavior you want.

One quick alternative for making a deep copy is using Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(obj)), but note that not all objects can be marshalled.