[squeak-dev] Class>>deepCopy???

Michael van der Gulik mikevdg at gmail.com
Fri May 2 09:31:14 UTC 2008


Hi all.

Why am I not meant to make a deep copy of a class? From the source for TraitBehavior>>deepCopy (which in 3.9 is the method that is invoked when you invoke #deepCopy on a class):

deepCopy
	"Classes should only be shallowCopied or made anew."
	^ self shallowCopy

Ditto applies for Class>>copy.

Surely, a shallow copy of a class is less useful than a deep copy because any modifications to the copy would also modify the original? Are there other reasons for copying a class other than to make a modifiable copy? 

Gulik.

-- 
Michael van der Gulik <mikevdg at gmail.com>



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