How to copy an object in Objective-C

user_173634 0
Viewed 117087

I need to deep copy a custom object that has objects of its own. I've been reading around and am a bit confused as to how to inherit NSCopying and how to use NSCopyObject.

copy objective-c
6 Answers

There is also the use of the -> operator for copying. For Example:

-(id)copyWithZone:(NSZone*)zone
{
    MYClass* copy = [MYClass new];
    copy->_property1 = self->_property1;
    ...
    copy->_propertyN = self->_propertyN;
    return copy;
}

The reasoning here is the resulting copied object should reflect the state of the original object. The "." operator could introduce side effects as this one calls getters which in turn may contain logic.

user_656940

This is probably unpopular way. But here how I do it:

object1 = // object to copy

YourClass *object2 = [[YourClass alloc] init];
object2.property1 = object1.property1;
object2.property2 = object1.property2;
..
etc.

Quite simple and straight forward. :P

user_5014390
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