see also NSCopying

and interesting discussion in MutableDeepCopyAndUserDefaults

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(ED.: This was moved from CopyingObjects)

I want to copy the contents of an array. So I tried using:

NSArray *originalArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithArray:arrayCopy copyItems:YES];

This gave me:

*** -[someObjectInTheArray copyWithZone:]: selector not recognized

A quick look at the documentation left me thinking I would have to incorpotate the NSCopying protocol in my various objects. Now my question is should I learn how on earth to do that or can I get away with doing this since all my classes implement NSCoding (Or is it sloppy, inefficient code):

NSArray *arrayCopy = [[NSUnarchiver unarchiveObjectWithData:[NSArchiver archivedDataWithRootObject:originalArray]] retain];

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I think it would be much wiser to implement and adpot the NSCopying protocol. This gives you the ablity not only to use the initWithArray:copyItems: method, but all the others at your convenience. The NSCoding code is probably rather inefficient since it’s creating several unnecessary autoreleased objects and just encoding/decoding the same data that could simply be copied to a new object.

-KevinPerry

I concur. – KritTer