Understanding Deep Copy and Shallow Copy in Python: A Guide for Beginners
In Python, creating a copy of an object using the assignment operator (=) does not create a new object. Instead, it only shares the reference of the original object to the new variable, leading to potential changes to the original object if modifications are made to the new variable. To avoid this issue, Python offers two copy methods: shallow copy and deep copy. Shallow copy creates new objects that store the original objects' reference, while deep copy creates a new object and recursively adds copies of nested objects present in the original elements. Python's copy module provides the copy() and deepcopy() methods for implementing shallow and deep copy, respectively. This guide explores the differences between shallow and deep copies and how to use the copy module to create copies of objects in Python.