I have an ArrayList l1 of size 10 I assign l1 to new list reference type l2 Will l1 and l2 point to same ArrayList object Or is a copy of the ArrayList object assigned to l2 When using the l2 reference if I update the list object it reflects the changes in the l1 reference type also For example List lt Integer gt l1 new ArrayList lt Integer gt for int i 1 i lt 10 i l1 add i List l2 l1 l2 clear Is there no other way to assign a copy of a list object to a new reference variable apart from creating 2 list objects and doing copy on collections from old to new

Java ArrayList copy

Yes, assignment will just copy the value of l1 (which is a reference) to l2. They will both refer to the same object.

Creating a shallow copy is pretty easy though:

List<Integer> newList = new ArrayList<>(oldList);

(Just as one example.)

~ Answered on 2011-06-30 14:12:12