Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes

  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);

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().

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.

Storable(3).