How to deep copy an irregular 2D array

Question

How can I deep copy an irregularly shaped 2D array in Java?

Ie.

int[][] nums =  {{5},
                 {9,4},
                 {1,7,8},
                      


        

Answer 1

Here's one that specializes to deeply cloning int[][]. It also allows any of the int[] to be null.

import java.util.*;

public class ArrayDeepCopy {

    static int[][] clone(int[][] arr) {
        final int L = arr.length;
        int[][] clone = new int[L][];
        for (int i = 0; i < clone.length; i++) {
            clone[i] = (arr[i] == null) ? null : arr[i].clone();
        }
        return clone;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[][] a = {
            { 1, },
            { 2, 3, },
            null,
        };
        int[][] b = a.clone();
        System.out.println(a[0] == b[0]); // "true", meaning shallow as expected!

        b = clone(a); // this is deep clone!
        System.out.println(Arrays.deepEquals(a, b)); // "true"
        System.out.println(a[0] == b[0]); // "false", no longer shallow!
    }
}