In Python, shallow copying creates a new object but inserts references to the original elements, while deep copying creates a new object and recursively copies all nested objects. I can perform a shallow copy using the
copy() method or list slicing (
list[:] ), but with nested data structures, only the top-level list is copied, and changes to nested elements will reflect in both copies.
To perform a deep copy, I use Python’s copy module with the
deepcopy() function, which ensures all nested elements are fully duplicated. Here’s an example :
import copy
original = [[1, 2], [3, 4]]
deep_copied = copy.deepcopy(original)?
In this code,
deep_copied is an independent copy of original , and any modifications to nested lists won’t affect each other. Deep copying is particularly useful when working with complex data structures where I need complete independence between the original and the copy.
