How Can I Achieve True Deep Object Copying in Programming?

Deep Object Copying: Ensuring Independent References

Deep copying an object involves creating a new object with an independent memory location, not referencing the original object. This ensures that changes made to one object do not affect the other.

To ensure independent references during deep object copying, follow these steps:

1. Serialize the Original Object: Convert the object into a byte stream using a serialization mechanism, such as Java's ObjectOutputStream.
2. Deserialize the Byte Stream: Create a new object by reading the byte stream using a deserialization mechanism, such as Java's ObjectInputStream.

This approach ensures that the new object is a completely new reference, independent of the original object.

Caveats:

• Custom serialization and deserialization methods may need to be implemented for classes that override default serialization behavior, such as singletons.
• Serialization is not possible for classes that do not implement the Serializable interface.

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