Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes ======================================= [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/garu/Clone.png?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/garu/Clone) [![Coverage Status](https://coveralls.io/repos/garu/Clone/badge.png?branch=master)](https://coveralls.io/r/garu/Clone?branch=master) [![CPAN version](https://badge.fury.io/pl/Clone.svg)](https://metacpan.org/pod/Clone) This module provides a `clone()` method which makes recursive copies of nested hash, array, scalar and reference types, including tied variables and objects. ```perl use Clone 'clone'; my $data = { set => [ 1 .. 50 ], foo => { answer => 42, object => SomeObject->new, }, }; my $cloned_data = clone($data); $cloned_data->{foo}{answer} = 1; print $cloned_data->{foo}{answer}; # '1' print $data->{foo}{answer}; # '42' ``` You can also add it to your class: ```perl package Foo; use parent 'Clone'; sub new { bless {}, shift } package main; my $obj = Foo->new; my $copy = $obj->clone; ``` `clone()` takes a scalar argument and duplicates it. To duplicate lists, arrays or hashes, pass them in by reference, e.g. ```perl my $copy = clone (\@array); # or my %copy = %{ clone (\%hash) }; ``` See Also -------- [Storable](https://metacpan.org/pod/Storable)'s `dclone()` is a flexible solution for cloning variables, albeit slower for average-sized data structures. Simple and naive benchmarks show that Clone is faster for data structures with 3 or fewer levels, while `dclone()` can be faster for structures 4 or more levels deep. COPYRIGHT --------- Copyright 2001-2015 Ray Finch. All Rights Reserved. This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. AUTHOR ------ Ray Finch `` Breno G. de Oliveira `` and Florian Ragwitz `` perform routine maintenance releases since 2012.