Copying Data Instead of Memory Addresses

[Jack]

I am currently trying to work on a program and I found it more convient to
have a tempory object which would hold a copy of data loaded from a file so I
wouldn't have to work with the overhead of loading from a file repeatedly.
My problem is that when I store the temporary object to another object,
changing the temporary object or its data also changes the data of the other
object.

Example:

MyClass a=new MyClass(2), b=new MyClass(3);
b=a;
a.data=10;
//b's data field now also equals 10 although what I really wanted to do was
//copy the integer data and keep it the same even if a's data field changed.

Since my objects are more complex than just one integer, I don't want to
have to manually move all the data and since there are also some objects
(such as Bitmaps) in the temporary object, so I would be unable to move the
data by hand without incurring the error described above.

Is there any way to create a copy of one object in such a way that the data
of the copy is not changed when the data of the original is changed?

Thank you.

[Chris]

This is how it should be. Look at what you are doing.

Here create a pointer to a class and call that pointer "a" and create and
object that "a" now points to.
MyClass a=new MyClass(2),

Here create a pointer to a class and call that pointer "b" and create and
object that "b" now points to.
b=new MyClass(3);

now have b point to the same object a and forget all about the object b
pointed to.
b=a;
a.data=10;

You have to make a copy of "a" in order to do what you want.

MyClass a, b
a = new MyClass(2)
b = a.makecopy()

hope this helps
Chris
"Jack" <Ja**@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A6**********************************@microsof t.com...

I am currently trying to work on a program and I found it more convient to
have a tempory object which would hold a copy of data loaded from a file
so I
wouldn't have to work with the overhead of loading from a file repeatedly.
My problem is that when I store the temporary object to another object,
changing the temporary object or its data also changes the data of the
other
object.

Example:

MyClass a=new MyClass(2), b=new MyClass(3);
b=a;
a.data=10;
//b's data field now also equals 10 although what I really wanted to do
was
//copy the integer data and keep it the same even if a's data field
changed.

Since my objects are more complex than just one integer, I don't want to
have to manually move all the data and since there are also some objects
(such as Bitmaps) in the temporary object, so I would be unable to move
the
data by hand without incurring the error described above.

Is there any way to create a copy of one object in such a way that the
data
of the copy is not changed when the data of the original is changed?

Thank you.

[Bruce Wood]

You want your class to implement the ICloneable interface.

You can then copy the object by saying

MyClass b = a.Clone();

However, you do have to write Clone() yourself, and define what
"cloning" means for your class....

[Bruce Wood]

You want your class to implement the ICloneable interface.

You can then copy the object by saying

MyClass b = a.Clone();

However, you do have to write Clone() yourself, and define what
"cloning" means for your class....