How do I do a deep copy of a 2d array in Java?

Question

I just got bit by using .clone() on my 2d boolean array, thinking that this was a deep copy.

How can I perform a deep copy of my bool

Answer 1

I've managed to come up with a recursive array deep copy. It seems to work pretty well even for multi dimensional arrays with varying dimension lengths e.g.

private static final int[][][] INT_3D_ARRAY = {
        {
                {1}
        },
        {
                {2, 3},
                {4, 5}
        },
        {
                {6, 7, 8},
                {9, 10, 11},
                {12, 13, 14}
        }
};

Here is the utility method.

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public static  T[] deepCopyOf(T[] array) {

    if (0 >= array.length) return array;

    return (T[]) deepCopyOf(
            array, 
            Array.newInstance(array[0].getClass(), array.length), 
            0);
}

private static Object deepCopyOf(Object array, Object copiedArray, int index) {

    if (index >= Array.getLength(array)) return copiedArray;

    Object element = Array.get(array, index);

    if (element.getClass().isArray()) {

        Array.set(copiedArray, index, deepCopyOf(
                element,
                Array.newInstance(
                        element.getClass().getComponentType(),
                        Array.getLength(element)),
                0));

    } else {

        Array.set(copiedArray, index, element);
    }

    return deepCopyOf(array, copiedArray, ++index);
}

EDIT: Updated the code to work with primitive arrays.