new object thats a copy of old object [resolved]

im trying to get an object from a collection and use it somewhere else
in the somewhere else that im useing it the object will be changed some. but i dont want it to change the object in the collection

it seems like i should just be able to say somehting like

dim obj as new object
obj = collection(1)

and the object in the collection wouldnt change when obj is changed but it still does

how can i stop it from changeing

Quote:

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Originally posted by dogfish227
im trying to get an object from a collection and use it somewhere else
in the somewhere else that im useing it the object will be changed some. but i dont want it to change the object in the collection

it seems like i should just be able to say somehting like

dim obj as new object
obj = collection(1)

and the object in the collection wouldnt change when obj is changed but it still does

how can i stop it from changeing

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what you have done is NOT create a new object but a REFERENCE to an existing object. The reference and the original object are thereafter indistinguishable.

What you need to do is to create a new instance of the same type of object and then set all it's properties to those of the original object.

VB Code:

Dim obj1 as new TextBox
obj1.Text=TextBox1.Text
obj1.Forecolor=TextBox1.Forecolor

etc.

You can then manipulate obj1 entirely independently of TextBox1. However, I can't think of any practical reason why you would want to do this, as you would normally manipulate the object's properties using variables etc.

To make a copy of an object I usually binary serialize it to a memory stream and deserialize it back out into the new destination object. Then you have 2 of the same thing in memory under different names and totally independant of each other. I think that is what you should do.

It is particularly good for large and complex classes. I have to do this kind of thing all the time in my apps as there is a lot of user manipulation of data. Users are given the chance to revert to a previous vesion of the data.

I explained my strategy in this thread a while ago...

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=292106

Scroll down to my first reply and read on from there. :)

You can also look into cloning, especial if it is a custom object that you need to copy, you should implement the ICloneable interface and just make a Clone method.

Quote:

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Originally posted by SeanGrebey
You can also look into cloning, especial if it is a custom object that you need to copy, you should implement the ICloneable interface and just make a Clone method.

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Doesn't cloning result in the original object reflecting changes in the cloned object?

wosses code worked great

Quote:

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Originally posted by dogfish227
wosses code worked great

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Of course. He's English. We get up earlier than the Yanks.:wave: