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

There is a simple way to clone objects in C# using a JSON serializer and deserializer.

You can create an extension class:

using Newtonsoft.Json;

static class typeExtensions
{
    [Extension()]
    public static T jsonCloneObject<T>(T source)
    {
    string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(source);
    return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(json);
    }
}

To clone and object:

obj clonedObj = originalObj.jsonCloneObject;

Answer 2

The following code should transfer onto a list with minimal changes.

Basically it works by inserting a new random number from a greater range with each successive loop. If there exist numbers already that are the same or higher than it, shift those random numbers up one so they transfer into the new larger range of random indexes.

// Example Usage
int[] indexes = getRandomUniqueIndexArray(selectFrom.Length, toSet.Length);

for(int i = 0; i < toSet.Length; i++)
    toSet[i] = selectFrom[indexes[i]];


private int[] getRandomUniqueIndexArray(int length, int count)
{
    if(count > length || count < 1 || length < 1)
        return new int[0];

    int[] toReturn = new int[count];
    if(count == length)
    {
        for(int i = 0; i < toReturn.Length; i++) toReturn[i] = i;
        return toReturn;
    }

    Random r = new Random();
    int startPos = count - 1;
    for(int i = startPos; i >= 0; i--)
    {
        int index = r.Next(length - i);
        for(int j = startPos; j > i; j--)
            if(toReturn[j] >= index)
                toReturn[j]++;
        toReturn[i] = index;
    }

    return toReturn;
}

Answer 3

public class CloneableList<T> : List<T>, ICloneable where T : ICloneable
{
  public object Clone()
  {
    var clone = new List<T>();
    ForEach(item => clone.Add((T)item.Clone()));
    return clone;
  }
}

Answer 4

public static Object CloneType(Object objtype)
{
    Object lstfinal = new Object();

    using (MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter(null, new StreamingContext(StreamingContextStates.Clone));
        binaryFormatter.Serialize(memStream, objtype); memStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
        lstfinal = binaryFormatter.Deserialize(memStream);
    }

    return lstfinal;
}

Answer 5

 //try this
 List<string> ListCopy= new List<string>(OldList);
 //or try
 List<T> ListCopy=OldList.ToList();

Answer 6

You could also simply convert the list to an array using ToArray, and then clone the array using Array.Clone(...). Depending on your needs, the methods included in the Array class could meet your needs.