Why and when to use angular.copy? (Deep Copy)

Question

I\'ve been saving all the data received from services direct to local variable, controller, or scope. What I suppose would be considered a shallow copy, is that correct?

Answer 1

Javascript passes variables by reference, this means that:

var i = [];
var j = i;
i.push( 1 );

Now because of by reference part i is [1], and j is [1] as well, even though only i was changed. This is because when we say j = i javascript doesn't copy the i variable and assign it to j but references i variable through j.

Angular copy lets us lose this reference, which means:

var i = [];
var j = angular.copy( i );
i.push( 1 );

Now i here equals to [1], while j still equals to [].

There are situations when such kind of copy functionality is very handy.