Create a Deep Copy in C#

Question

I want to make a deep copy of an object so I could change the the new copy and still have the option to cancel my changes and get back the original object.

My proble

Answer 1

Ok, I modified your routine a little bit. You'll need to clean it up but it should accomplish what you want. I did not test this against controls or filestreams, and care should be taken with those instances.

I avoided Memberwise clone for Activator.CreateInstance. This will create new Instances of reference types and copy value types. If you use objects with multi-dimensional arrays you will need to use the Array Rank and iterate for each rank.

    static object DeepCopyMine(object obj)
    {
        if (obj == null) return null;

        object newCopy;
        if (obj.GetType().IsArray)
        {
            var t = obj.GetType();
            var e = t.GetElementType();
            var r = t.GetArrayRank();
            Array a = (Array)obj;
            newCopy = Array.CreateInstance(e, a.Length);
            Array n = (Array)newCopy;
            for (int i=0; i