Difference Between the System.Array.CopyTo() and System.Array.Clone()

Question

Hi What is the difference between the System.Array.CopyTo() and System.Array.Clone() ?

Jignesh Trivedi · Answer

hi The Clone() method returns a new array (a shallow copy) object containing all the elements in the original array. The CopyTo() method copies the elements into another existing array. Both perform a shallow copy. A shallow copy means the contents (each array element) contains references to the same object as the elements in the original array. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.array.clone.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.array.copyto.aspx int[] Originalnumbers = { 1 2 3 4 5 }; int[] numbersClone = (int[])Originalnumbers.Clone(); numbersClone[2] = 0; Console.WriteLine(Clone Example); Console.WriteLine(----------------------); Console.WriteLine(Originalnumbers[2]);//Display 4 Console.WriteLine(numbersClone[2]);//Display 0 !!! Not the same :) Console.WriteLine(----------------------); int[] numbersCopy = new int[6]; Originalnumbers.CopyTo(numbersCopy 0); numbersCopy[3] = 0; Console.WriteLine(Copy Example); Console.WriteLine(----------------------); Console.WriteLine(Originalnumbers[3]);//Display 4 Console.WriteLine(numbersCopy[3]);//Display 0 !!! Not the same :) Console.WriteLine(----------------------); hope this will help you.

Vulpes · Answer

Array.CopyTo copies the elements of one array to another pre-existing array starting from a given index (usually 0). Both arrays must be single dimensional. Array.Clone creates a copy of an array as an object. It therefore needs to be cast to the actual array type before it can be used to do very much. It works on both single and multi-dimensional arrays. In both cases the copies are shallow copies i.e. in the case of reference types only the references are copied - the objects to which they refer are not copied.