What is the difference between shallow and deep copy in programming languages?

What is the difference between shallow and deep copy in programming languages?

Shallow copy creates a new object but inserts references into it to the objects found in the original. Deep copy, on the other hand, creates a new object and recursively copies all objects found in the original, resulting in a completely independent object.

Can you give examples of shallow and deep copy in Python?

Sure! In Python, you can use the copy module. A shallow copy can be made using copy.copy(), while a deep copy can be created with copy.deepcopy().

What about Java? How does it handle shallow and deep copies?

In Java, a shallow copy can be created using the clone() method, which copies the object but not the objects it references. For a deep copy, you typically need to implement a custom method to clone all referenced objects.

Are there performance implications when choosing between shallow and deep copy?

Yes, deep copies can be more resource-intensive and slower because they involve copying all nested objects, while shallow copies are faster as they only copy references.