Simple Question: Reference vs. Value

Question

So I've got a class called Soldier and I'm trying to create a seperate copy of it basically. But since classes assign through reference whenever I create a new soldier and set it as the old one they both point to the same instance. I'm wondering if there's anyway to just copy all of the values over into a new Soldier class.

John Bridle · Answer

Ok; just noticed in my Framework guidelines that microsoft recommend creating a Clone method without implementing the Iclonable interface to avoid the confusion between deep and shallow clones. (doh Bill)

John Bridle · Answer

You could implement the IClonable interface and generate some generic reflective code similar to below: public class MyClonableClass:ICloneable { private string _test; public string Test { get { return _test; } set { _test = value; } } #region ICloneable Members public object Clone() { MyClonableClass clone = new MyClonableClass(); PropertyInfo[] props = this.GetType().GetProperties(); if (props != null) { PropertyInfo copyProp; foreach (PropertyInfo prop in props) { if (prop.CanRead && prop.CanWrite) { copyProp = clone.GetType().GetProperty(prop.Name); copyProp.SetValue(clone prop.GetValue(this null) null); } } } return clone; } #endregion } this can then be used like this: MyClonableClass original = new MyClonableClass(); original.Test = Test; MyClonableClass copy = new MyClonableClass(); copy = original.Clone() as MyClonableClass; original.Test = Not Clone; Debug.WriteLine(copy.Test); The debug print out should still read Test; hope this helps?