Cloneable (Java Platform SE 8 ) (original) (raw)

• All Known Subinterfaces:
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public interface Cloneable
A class implements the Cloneable interface to indicate to the Object.clone() method that it is legal for that method to make a field-for-field copy of instances of that class.
Invoking Object's clone method on an instance that does not implement theCloneable interface results in the exceptionCloneNotSupportedException being thrown.
By convention, classes that implement this interface should overrideObject.clone (which is protected) with a public method. See Object.clone() for details on overriding this method.
Note that this interface does not contain the clone method. Therefore, it is not possible to clone an object merely by virtue of the fact that it implements this interface. Even if the clone method is invoked reflectively, there is no guarantee that it will succeed.
Since:
JDK1.0
See Also:
CloneNotSupportedException, Object.clone()

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