How to clone ArrayList and also clone its contents?

	How can I clone ArrayList but also clone its items in Java 1.5? For example I have: ArrayList<Dog> dogs = getDogs(); ArrayList<Dog> clonedList = ....something to do with dogs.... And I would expect that objects in clonedList are not the same as in dogs list. Thanks for any answer! java collections clone deep-copy

Answers

You will need to iterate on the items, and clone them one by one, putting the clones in your result array as you go. public static List<Dog> cloneList(List<Dog> list) { List<Dog> clone = new ArrayList<Dog>(list.size()); for(Dog item: list) clone.add(item.clone()); return clone; } For that to work, obviously, you will have to get your Dog object to implement the Cloneable interface, and the clone() method.