[Cdk-devel] RFC: Clones and Copies

[Egon W. <eg...@us...>]

Hi all,

recently I posted some bits on the PMD tests, and some remaining problems with 
the core classes... I might have found another one... 

What about cloning? Therefore:

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Request for Comments

Name: Clones and Copies
Date: 2004-08-07
Proposer: Egon Willighagen

REASON

AtomContainer has a shallowCopy() and a clone()... the first clones everything 
by making clones of all fields, while the second only creates a new 
AtomContainer, but with the exact same instances for its content... 

Atom's clone() method, however, was more like a shallowCopy... I've fixed 
this, but since this is so important I really want to make this a formal 
agreement, and therefore this proposal.

PROPOSAL

Each core class has a clone() and a copy() method. The first makes a deep 
clone, which means that clone() makes a clone of itself and all of its 
content. The copy() method, however, makes a clone of itself and maintains 
the instances of all object fields.

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