In Java, how to make a deep copy of an instance of Stack easily?

Question

e.g.

class StackElement {
    String method;
    int state;
}

Stack<StackElement> stack;

I want to get a deep copy of this stack, which contains StackElement defined by myself.

1. Does Java provide a suitable API for this purpose ?

2. If not, how to implement it in a simple and general way ?

Answer 1

The easiest way is to follow these simple steps:

1. make your StackElement implement Serializable;
2. serialize the complete stack into a byte array;
3. deserialize right back into a deep copy.

The downside is less-than-top performance.

Do note that Stack is considered an archaeological artefact, obsoleted way back in Java 1.2 by LinkedList, which can be used as a stack. The reason it is obsoleted is that each method is synchronized, adding very little to thread safety of client code, but introducing a performance hit and even possible deadlocks.

Answer 2

I'm not sure if there's a special issue with your case, but you could look at some options here.