Edit

Share via

ICloneable Interface

Definition

Namespace:
System
Assemblies:
netstandard.dll, System.Runtime.dll
Assembly:
System.Runtime.dll
Assembly:
mscorlib.dll
Assembly:
netstandard.dll
Source:
ICloneable.cs

Supports cloning, which creates a new instance of a class with the same value as an existing instance.

C# 
public interface ICloneable
C# 
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComVisible(true)]
public interface ICloneable
Derived
Attributes
ComVisibleAttribute

Remarks

The ICloneable interface enables you to provide a customized implementation that creates a copy of an existing object. The ICloneable interface contains one member, the Clone method, which is intended to provide cloning support beyond that supplied by Object.MemberwiseClone. For more information about cloning, deep versus shallow copies, and examples, see the Object.MemberwiseClone method.

Notes to Implementers

The ICloneable interface simply requires that your implementation of the Clone() method return a copy of the current object instance. It does not specify whether the cloning operation performs a deep copy, a shallow copy, or something in between. Nor does it require all property values of the original instance to be copied to the new instance. For example, the Clone() method performs a shallow copy of all properties except the IsReadOnly property; it always sets this property value to false in the cloned object. Because callers of Clone() cannot depend on the method performing a predictable cloning operation, we recommend that ICloneable not be implemented in public APIs.

Methods

Clone()

Creates a new object that is a copy of the current instance.

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 2.0, 2.1

See also