A deep copy of an object is a separate, fully independent duplicate of that object, such that any references / pointers it holds to other objects refer to deep copies of those to which the original's refer. Use this tag for questions regarding implementing or using deep copying methods.
Deep copying is a process by which an object is fully duplicated to create a copy that is wholly independent of the original. This differs from shallow copying with respect to the treatment of references / pointers to other objects: deep copying makes a deep copy of each referenced object, too, whereas shallow copying copies only the references. Deep copying is "deep" in the sense that it traverses the object's reference graph all the way to the bottom.
Related tags
Links
- Deep copying on Wikipedia (part of the article on object copying in general)
- Shallow vs. deep copying (from learncpp.com) in the context of C/C++
