SafeClone

This tiny gem implements a version of clone called safe_clone. Unlike the standard clone method, the safe_clone method does not throw an exception when sent to un-clonable value objects like 42 or true. These values simply return themselves. This is correct because those types of objects do not need to be cloned. Instead of having a fit, the code just works!

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'safe_clone'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install safe_clone

Usage

require 'safe_clone'

then, in those places where regular clone was problematic, use:

foo = my_object.safe_clone

instead of

begin
  foo = my_object.clone
rescue TypeError
  foo = my_object
end

Further, when benchmarked under

ruby 1.9.3p484 (2013-11-22) [i386-mingw32]

the following results are observed:

C:\Sites\safe_clone>ruby bench\bench.rb
Warming up --------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                         6.424k i/100ms
Clone with the safe clone method
                        97.476k i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                         72.460k (

With:

ruby 2.1.6p336 (2015-04-13 revision 50298) [i386-mingw32]

the following results are observed:

C:\Sites\safe_clone>ruby bench\bench.rb
Warming up --------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                        20.607k i/100ms
Clone with the safe clone method
                       107.236k i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                        298.041k (

And with:

ruby 2.2.3p173 (2015-08-18 revision 51636) [i386-cygwin]

we get:

$ ruby bench/bench.rb
Warming up --------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                        15.876k i/100ms
Clone with the safe clone method
                        70.638k i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
Clone with standard clone method
                        219.593k (

Overall: Shorter code and faster. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request