NAME

Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes

SYNOPSIS

use Clone;

push @Foo::ISA, 'Clone';

$a = new Foo;
$b = $a->clone();

# or

use Clone qw(clone);

$a = { 'foo' => 'bar', 'move' => 'zig' };
$b = [ 'alpha', 'beta', 'gamma', 'vlissides' ];
$c = new Foo();

$d = clone($a);
$e = clone($b);
$f = clone($c);

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 an optional parameter that can be used to limit the depth of the copy. To duplicate lists, arrays or hashes, pass them in by reference. e.g.

my $copy = clone (\@array);

# or

my %copy = %{ clone (\%hash) };

For a slower, but more flexible solution see Storable's dclone().

AUTHOR

Ray Finch, rdf@cpan.org

Copyright 2001 Ray Finch.

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

SEE ALSO

Storable(3).