NAME

       Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes

SYNOPSIS

           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:

           package Foo;
           use parent 'Clone';
           sub new { bless {}, shift }

           package main;

           my $obj = Foo->new;
           my $copy = $obj->clone;

DESCRIPTION

       This module provides a "clone()" method which makes recursive copies of nested hash,
       array, scalar and reference types, including tied variables and objects.

       "clone()" takes a scalar argument and duplicates it. To duplicate lists, arrays or hashes,
       pass them in by reference, e.g.

           my $copy = clone (\@array);

           # or

           my %copy = %{ clone (\%hash) };

SEE ALSO

       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 2001-2017 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 "<rdf@cpan.org>"

       Breno G. de Oliveira "<garu@cpan.org>" and Florian Ragwitz "<rafl@debian.org>" perform
       routine maintenance releases since 2012.