1 /* Cloneable.java -- Interface for marking objects cloneable by Object.clone() 2 Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 3 4 This file is part of GNU Classpath. 5 6 GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 7 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by 8 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) 9 any later version. 10 11 GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 12 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 13 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU 14 General Public License for more details. 15 16 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 17 along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the 18 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 19 02110-1301 USA. 20 21 Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is 22 making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and 23 conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole 24 combination. 25 26 As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you 27 permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an 28 executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent 29 modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under 30 terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked 31 independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that 32 module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from 33 or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend 34 this exception to your version of the library, but you are not 35 obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this 36 exception statement from your version. */ 37 38 39 package java.lang; 40 41 /** 42 * This interface should be implemented by classes wishing to 43 * support of override <code>Object.clone()</code>. The default 44 * behaviour of <code>clone()</code> performs a shallow copy, but 45 * subclasses often change this to perform a deep copy. Therefore, 46 * it is a good idea to document how deep your clone will go. 47 * If <code>clone()</code> is called on an object which does not 48 * implement this interface, a <code>CloneNotSupportedException</code> 49 * will be thrown. 50 * 51 * <p>This interface is simply a tagging interface; it carries no 52 * requirements on methods to implement. However, it is typical for 53 * a Cloneable class to implement at least <code>equals</code>, 54 * <code>hashCode</code>, and <code>clone</code>, sometimes 55 * increasing the accessibility of clone to be public. The typical 56 * implementation of <code>clone</code> invokes <code>super.clone()</code> 57 * rather than a constructor, but this is not a requirement. 58 * 59 * <p>If an object that implement Cloneable should not be cloned, 60 * simply override the <code>clone</code> method to throw a 61 * <code>CloneNotSupportedException</code>. 62 * 63 * <p>All array types implement Cloneable, and have a public 64 * <code>clone</code> method that will never fail with a 65 * <code>CloneNotSupportedException</code>. 66 * 67 * @author Paul Fisher 68 * @author Eric Blake (ebb9@email.byu.edu) 69 * @author Warren Levy (warrenl@cygnus.com) 70 * @see Object#clone() 71 * @see CloneNotSupportedException 72 * @since 1.0 73 * @status updated to 1.4 74 */ 75 public interface Cloneable 76 { 77 // Tagging interface only. 78 } 79