Creates and returns a copy of this object. The precise meaning
of "copy" may depend on the class of the object. The general
intent is that, for any object
x, the expression:
x.clone() != x
will be true, and that the expression:
x.clone().getClass() == x.getClass()
will be
true, but these are not absolute requirements.
While it is typically the case that:
x.clone().equals(x)
will be
true, this is not an absolute requirement.
By convention, the returned object should be obtained by calling
super.clone. If a class and all of its superclasses (except
Object) obey this convention, it will be the case that
x.clone().getClass() == x.getClass().
By convention, the object returned by this method should be independent
of this object (which is being cloned). To achieve this independence,
it may be necessary to modify one or more fields of the object returned
by super.clone before returning it. Typically, this means
copying any mutable objects that comprise the internal "deep structure"
of the object being cloned and replacing the references to these
objects with references to the copies. If a class contains only
primitive fields or references to immutable objects, then it is usually
the case that no fields in the object returned by super.clone
need to be modified.
The method clone for class Object performs a
specific cloning operation. First, if the class of this object does
not implement the interface Cloneable, then a
CloneNotSupportedException is thrown. Note that all arrays
are considered to implement the interface Cloneable and that
the return type of the clone method of an array type T[]
is T[] where T is any reference or primitive type.
Otherwise, this method creates a new instance of the class of this
object and initializes all its fields with exactly the contents of
the corresponding fields of this object, as if by assignment; the
contents of the fields are not themselves cloned. Thus, this method
performs a "shallow copy" of this object, not a "deep copy" operation.
The class Object does not itself implement the interface
Cloneable, so calling the clone method on an object
whose class is Object will result in throwing an
exception at run time.
Creates a new object for specifying image capabilities.
