How do I clone a generic list in C#?

Question

I have a generic list of objects in C#, and wish to clone the list. The items within the list are cloneable, but there doesn't seem to be an option to do list.Clone().

Is there an easy way around this?

Answer 1

For a shallow copy, you can instead use the GetRange method of the generic List class.

List<int> oldList = new List<int>( );
// Populate oldList...

List<int> newList = oldList.GetRange(0, oldList.Count);

Quoted from: Generics Recipes

Answer 2

My friend Gregor Martinovic and I came up with this easy solution using a JavaScript Serializer. There is no need to flag classes as Serializable and in our tests using the Newtonsoft JsonSerializer even faster than using BinaryFormatter. With extension methods usable on every object.

Standard .NET JavascriptSerializer option:

public static T DeepCopy<T>(this T value)
{
    JavaScriptSerializer js = new JavaScriptSerializer();

    string json = js.Serialize(value);

    return js.Deserialize<T>(json);
}

Faster option using Newtonsoft JSON:

public static T DeepCopy<T>(this T value)
{
    string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(value);

    return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(json);
}

Answer 3

Another thing: you could use reflection. If you'll cache this properly, then it'll clone 1,000,000 objects in 5.6 seconds (sadly, 16.4 seconds with inner objects).

[ProtoContract(ImplicitFields = ImplicitFields.AllPublic)]
public class Person
{
       ...
      Job JobDescription
       ...
}

[ProtoContract(ImplicitFields = ImplicitFields.AllPublic)]
public class Job
{...
}

private static readonly Type stringType = typeof (string);

public static class CopyFactory
{
    static readonly Dictionary<Type, PropertyInfo[]> ProperyList = new Dictionary<Type, PropertyInfo[]>();

    private static readonly MethodInfo CreateCopyReflectionMethod;

    static CopyFactory()
    {
        CreateCopyReflectionMethod = typeof(CopyFactory).GetMethod("CreateCopyReflection", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public);
    }

    public static T CreateCopyReflection<T>(T source) where T : new()
    {
        var copyInstance = new T();
        var sourceType = typeof(T);

        PropertyInfo[] propList;
        if (ProperyList.ContainsKey(sourceType))
            propList = ProperyList[sourceType];
        else
        {
            propList = sourceType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);
            ProperyList.Add(sourceType, propList);
        }

        foreach (var prop in propList)
        {
            var value = prop.GetValue(source, null);
            prop.SetValue(copyInstance,
                value != null && prop.PropertyType.IsClass && prop.PropertyType != stringType ? CreateCopyReflectionMethod.MakeGenericMethod(prop.PropertyType).Invoke(null, new object[] { value }) : value, null);
        }

        return copyInstance;
    }

I measured it in a simple way, by using the Watcher class.

 var person = new Person
 {
     ...
 };

 for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++)
 {
    personList.Add(person);
 }
 var watcher = new Stopwatch();
 watcher.Start();
 var copylist = personList.Select(CopyFactory.CreateCopyReflection).ToList();
 watcher.Stop();
 var elapsed = watcher.Elapsed;

RESULT: With inner object PersonInstance - 16.4, PersonInstance = null - 5.6

CopyFactory is just my test class where I have dozen of tests including usage of expression. You could implement this in another form in an extension or whatever. Don't forget about caching.

I didn't test serializing yet, but I doubt in an improvement with a million classes. I'll try something fast protobuf/newton.

P.S.: for the sake of reading simplicity, I only used auto-property here. I could update with FieldInfo, or you should easily implement this by your own.

I recently tested the Protocol Buffers serializer with the DeepClone function out of the box. It wins with 4.2 seconds on a million simple objects, but when it comes to inner objects, it wins with the result 7.4 seconds.

Serializer.DeepClone(personList);

SUMMARY: If you don't have access to the classes, then this will help. Otherwise it depends on the count of the objects. I think you could use reflection up to 10,000 objects (maybe a bit less), but for more than this the Protocol Buffers serializer will perform better.

Answer 4

If you need a cloned list with the same capacity, you can try this:

public static List<T> Clone<T>(this List<T> oldList)
{
    var newList = new List<T>(oldList.Capacity);
    newList.AddRange(oldList);
    return newList;
}

Answer 5

Unless you need an actual clone of every single object inside your List<T>, the best way to clone a list is to create a new list with the old list as the collection parameter.

List<T> myList = ...;
List<T> cloneOfMyList = new List<T>(myList);

Changes to myList such as insert or remove will not affect cloneOfMyList and vice versa.

The actual objects the two Lists contain are still the same however.

Answer 6

You can use extension method:

namespace extension
{
    public class ext
    {
        public static List<double> clone(this List<double> t)
        {
            List<double> kop = new List<double>();
            int x;
            for (x = 0; x < t.Count; x++)
            {
                kop.Add(t[x]);
            }
            return kop;
        }
   };

}

You can clone all objects by using their value type members for example, consider this class:

public class matrix
{
    public List<List<double>> mat;
    public int rows,cols;
    public matrix clone()
    { 
        // create new object
        matrix copy = new matrix();
        // firstly I can directly copy rows and cols because they are value types
        copy.rows = this.rows;  
        copy.cols = this.cols;
        // but now I can no t directly copy mat because it is not value type so
        int x;
        // I assume I have clone method for List<double>
        for(x=0;x<this.mat.count;x++)
        {
            copy.mat.Add(this.mat[x].clone());
        }
        // then mat is cloned
        return copy; // and copy of original is returned 
    }
};

Note: if you do any change on copy (or clone) it will not affect the original object.