How do you copy an object in Python?

Software Development
#1

In Python, the assignment statement (= operator) does not copy objects. Instead, it creates a binding between the existing object and the target variable name. To create copies of an object in Python, we need to use the copy module. Moreover, there are two ways of creating copies for the given object using the copy module -

Shallow Copy is a bit-wise copy of an object. The copied object created has an exact copy of the values in the original object. If either of the values is a reference to other objects, just the reference addresses for the same are copied.
Deep Copy copies all values recursively from source to target object, i.e. it even duplicates the objects referenced by the source object.

from copy import copy, deepcopy
list_1 = [1, 2, [3, 5], 4]
shallow copy
list_2 = copy(list_1)
list_2[3] = 7
list_2[2].append(6)
list_2 # output => [1, 2, [3, 5, 6], 7]
list_1 # output => [1, 2, [3, 5, 6], 4]
deep copy
list_3 = deepcopy(list_1)
list_3[3] = 8
list_3[2].append(7)
list_3 # output => [1, 2, [3, 5, 6, 7], 8]
list_1 # output => [1, 2, [3, 5, 6], 4]

#2

In Python, Assignment statements do not copy objects, they create bindings between a target and an object. When we use = operator user thinks that this creates a new object; well, it doesn’t. It only creates a new variable that shares the reference of the original object. Sometimes a user wants to work with mutable objects, in order to do that user looks for a way to create “real copies” or “clones” of these objects. Or, sometimes a user wants copies that user can modify without automatically modifying the original at the same time, in order to do that we create copies of objects.

A copy is sometimes needed so one can change one copy without changing the other. In Python, there are two ways to create copies :

  • Deep copy
  • Shallow copy