DeepCopy.java

package org.overture.codegen.runtime.copying;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectInputStream;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;

/**
 * Utility for making deep copies (vs. clone()'s shallow copies) of objects. Objects are first serialized and then
 * deserialized. Error checking is fairly minimal in this implementation. If an object is encountered that cannot be
 * serialized (or that references an object that cannot be serialized) an error is printed to System.err and null is
 * returned. Depending on your specific application, it might make more sense to have copy(...) re-throw the exception.
 */
public class DeepCopy
{

	/**
	 * Returns a copy of the object, or null if the object cannot be serialized.
	 */
	public static Object copy(Object orig)
	{
		Object obj = null;
		try
		{
			// Write the object out to a byte array
			FastByteArrayOutputStream fbos = new FastByteArrayOutputStream();
			ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(fbos);
			out.writeObject(orig);
			out.flush();
			out.close();

			// Retrieve an input stream from the byte array and read
			// a copy of the object back in.
			ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(fbos.getInputStream());
			obj = in.readObject();
		} catch (IOException e)
		{
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (ClassNotFoundException cnfe)
		{
			cnfe.printStackTrace();
		}
		return obj;
	}

}