ICloneable interface in C#

Learn what is ICloneable interface and how to use it in .NET.

The ICloneable interface contains one member, Clone, which is intended to support cloning beyond that supplied by MemberwiseClone. It is a procedure that can create a true, distinct copy of an object and all its dependent object, is to rely on the serialization features of the .NET framework.

There are two ways to clone an instance:

An instance is an actual object created to the specification defined by a class.

1. Shallow copy - may be linked to data shared by both the original and the copy
2. Deep copy - contains the complete encapsulated data of the original object

Syntex

[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
public interface ICloneable

Example

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Diagnostics;

public class value : ICloneable
{
    public int i;
    public int j;
 
    public value(int aa, int bb)
    {
        i = aa;
        j = bb;
    }
 
    public string ToString()
    {
        return "(" + i + "," + j + ")";
    }
 
    public virtual object Cloning()
    {
        return new value(i, j);
    }
    object ICloneable.Clone()
    {
        return Cloning();
    }
}

Output