Deep Copy in C#

Question

MSDN gives this example of a deep copy (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.object.memberwiseclone.aspx)

public class Person 
{
    public int Age;
           


        

Answer 1

Alternatively, if you are able to set Serializable attribute to all involved classes, you can use serialization. For the purpose of a generic deep copy I have this object extension method:

public static class ObjectExtensions
{
    #region Methods

    public static T Copy(this T source)
    {
        var isNotSerializable = !typeof(T).IsSerializable;
        if (isNotSerializable)
            throw new ArgumentException("The type must be serializable.", "source");

        var sourceIsNull = ReferenceEquals(source, null);
        if (sourceIsNull)
            return default(T);

        var formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
        using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            formatter.Serialize(stream, source);
            stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
            return (T)formatter.Deserialize(stream);
        }
    }

    #endregion
}

This should also copy your IdInfo field.

Usage is simple:

var copy = obj.Copy();