Shallow & Deep Objects

[Tom Keith]

Hi All,
Few of my friends were using the terms Shallow & Deep Objects. Can somebody tell what it means? Is it something new or just a differnt name for some concept?
Thanks,
Tom
[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Keith ]

[Cindy Glass]

Perhaps you mean a shallow vs a deep copy or clone?
If you clone something - say an array, there are two ways that you can do it. You can create an identical array where each of the elements of the arrays point to the same objects. This is a shallow copy.
array1 = [ obj1 ] [ obj2 ] [ obj3 ] copies to
array2 = [ obj1 ] [ obj2 ] [ obj3 ]
Both array1 and array2 have elements referencing the SAME objects.
In a deep clone not only do you create a new array object, you also create copies of each of the objects that are referenced by the array.
array1 = [ obj1 ] [ obj2 ] [ obj3 ] copies to
array2 = [ CopyOfObj1 ] [ CopyOfObj2 ] [ CopyOfObj3 ]
This is a deep copy.
Is this what you are talking about?
[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Cindy Glass ]