Copyable.java

/*
 *    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 *    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 *    (at your option) any later version.
 *
 *    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *    GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 *    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 *    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 *    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
 */

/*
 *    Copyable.java
 *    Copyright (C) 1999 University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
 *
 */

package weka.core;

/**
 * Interface implemented by classes that can produce "shallow" copies
 * of their objects. (As opposed to clone(), which is supposed to
 * produce a "deep" copy.)
 *
 * @author Eibe Frank (eibe@cs.waikato.ac.nz)
 * @version $Revision: 5953 $
 */
public interface Copyable {

  /**
   * This method produces a shallow copy of an object.
   * It does the same as the clone() method in Object, which also produces
   * a shallow copy.
   */
  Object copy();
}