How create a new deep copy (clone) of a List<T>?

Question

In the following piece of code,

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace clone_test_01
{

    public partial class MainForm : Form
    {

        public class Book
        {
            public string title = "";

            public Book(string title)
            {
                this.title = title;
            }
        }


        public MainForm()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            List<Book> books_1 = new List<Book>();
            books_1.Add(  new Book("One")  );
            books_1.Add(  new Book("Two")  );
            books_1.Add(  new Book("Three")  );
            books_1.Add(  new Book("Four")  );

            List<Book> books_2 = new List<Book>(books_1);

            books_2[0].title = "Five";
            books_2[1].title = "Six";

            textBox1.Text = books_1[0].title;
            textBox2.Text = books_1[1].title;
        }
    }

}

I use a Book object type to create a List<T> and I populate it with a few items giving them a unique title (from 'one' to 'five').

Then I create List<Book> books_2 = new List<Book>(books_1).

From this point, I know it's a clone of the list object, BUT the book objects from book_2 are still a reference from the book objects in books_1. It's proven by making changes on the two first elements of books_2, and then checking those same elements of book_1 in a TextBox.

books_1[0].title and books_2[1].title have indeed been changed to the new values of books_2[0].title and books_2[1].title.

NOW THE QUESTION

How do we create a new hard copy of a List<T>? The idea is that books_1 and books_2 become completely independent of each other.

I'm disappointed Microsoft didn't offer a neat, fast and easy solution like Ruby are doing with the clone() method.

What would be really awesome from helpers is to use my code and alter it with a workable solution so it can be compiled and work. I think it will truly help newbies trying to understand offered solutions for this issue.

EDIT: Note that the Book class could be more complex and have more properties. I tried to keep things simple.

Answer 1

Well,

If you mark all involved classes as serializable you can :

public static List<T> CloneList<T>(List<T> oldList)  
{  
  BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();  
  MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();  
  formatter.Serialize(stream, oldList);  
  stream.Position = 0;  
  return (List<T>)formatter.Deserialize(stream);      
} 

Source:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/5c9b4c31-850d-41c4-8ea3-fae734b348c4/copy-listsomeobject-to-clone-list?forum=csharpgeneral

Answer 2

C# 9 records and with expressions can make it a little easier, especially if your type has many properties.

You can use something like:

var books2 = books1.Select(b => b with { }).ToList();

I did this as an example:

record Book
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

static void Main()
{
    List<Book> books1 = new List<Book>()
    {
        new Book { Name = "Book1.1" },
        new Book { Name = "Book1.2" },
        new Book { Name = "Book1.3" }
    };

    var books2 = books1.Select(b => b with { }).ToList();

    books2[0].Name = "Changed";
    books2[1].Name = "Changed";

    Console.WriteLine("Books1 contains:");
    foreach (var item in books1)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(item);
    }

    Console.WriteLine("Books2 contains:");
    foreach (var item in books2)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(item);
    }
}

And the output was: (Changes made to objects in Books2 did not affect original objects in Books1)

Books1 contains:

Book { Name = Book1.1 }

Book { Name = Book1.2 }

Book { Name = Book1.3 }

Books2 contains:

Book { Name = Changed }

Book { Name = Changed }

Book { Name = Book1.3 }

Answer 3

Straight forward simple way to copy any generic list :

List<whatever> originalCopy=new List<whatever>();//create new list
originalCopy.AddRange(original);//perform copy of original list

Answer 4

You can use this:

var newList= JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Book>>(list.toJson());

Answer 5

public static class Cloner
{
    public static T Clone<T>(this T item)
    {
        FieldInfo[] fis = item.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
        object tempMyClass = Activator.CreateInstance(item.GetType());
        foreach (FieldInfo fi in fis)
        {
            if (fi.FieldType.Namespace != item.GetType().Namespace)
                fi.SetValue(tempMyClass, fi.GetValue(item));
            else
            {
                object obj = fi.GetValue(item);
                if (obj != null)
                    fi.SetValue(tempMyClass, obj.Clone());
            }
        }
        return (T)tempMyClass;
    }
}

Answer 6

List<Book> books_2 = new List<Book>(books_2.ToArray());

That should do exactly what you want. Demonstrated here.

Answer 7

If the Array class meets your needs, you could also use the List.ToArray method, which copies elements to a new array.

Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x303t819(v=vs.110).aspx

Answer 8

Since Clone would return an object instance of Book, that object would first need to be cast to a Book before you can call ToList on it. The example above needs to be written as:

List<Book> books_2 = books_1.Select(book => (Book)book.Clone()).ToList();

Answer 9

I'm disappointed Microsoft didn't offer a neat, fast and easy solution like Ruby are doing with the clone() method.

Except that does not create a deep copy, it creates a shallow copy.

With deep copying, you have to be always careful, what exactly do you want to copy. Some examples of possible issues are:

1. Cycle in the object graph. For example, Book has an Author and Author has a list of his Books.
2. Reference to some external object. For example, an object could contain open Stream that writes to a file.
3. Events. If an object contains an event, pretty much anyone could be subscribed to it. This can get especially problematic if the subscriber is something like a GUI Window.

Now, there are basically two ways how to clone something:

1. Implement a Clone() method in each class that you need cloned. (There is also ICloneable interface, but you should not use that; using a custom ICloneable<T> interface as Trevor suggested is okay.) If you know that all you need is to create a shallow copy of each field of this class, you could use MemberwiseClone() to implement it. As an alternative, you could create a “copy constructor”: public Book(Book original).
2. Use serialization to serialize your objects into a MemoryStream and then deserialize them back. This requires you to mark each class as [Serializable] and it can also be configured what exactly (and how) should be serialized. But this is more of a “quick and dirty” solution, and will most likely also be less performant.

Answer 10

Create a generic ICloneable<T> interface which you implement in your Book class so that the class knows how to create a copy of itself.

public interface ICloneable<T>
{
    T Clone();
}

public class Book : ICloneable<Book>
{
    public Book Clone()
    {
        return new Book { /* set properties */ };
    }
}

You can then use either the linq or ConvertAll methods that Mark mentioned.

List<Book> books_2 = books_1.Select(book => book.Clone()).ToList();

or

List<Book> books_2 = books_1.ConvertAll(book => book.Clone());

Answer 11

You need to create new Book objects then put those in a new List:

List<Book> books_2 = books_1.Select(book => new Book(book.title)).ToList();

Update: Slightly simpler... List<T> has a method called ConvertAll that returns a new list:

List<Book> books_2 = books_1.ConvertAll(book => new Book(book.title));