How to assign List<T> without it being a reference to the original List<T>?

Question

For example

List<string> name_list1 = new List<string>(); List<string> name_list2 = new List<string>(); 

later in the code:

name_list1.Add("McDonald"); name_list1.Add("Harveys"); name_list1.Add("Wendys");  name_list2 = name_list1; // I make a copy of namelist1 to namelist2 

So, from this point I would like to keep adding element or making changes in name_list2 without affecting name_list1. How do I do that?

Answer 1

Another Options is : Deep Cloning

public static T DeepCopy<T>(T item)         {             BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();             MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();             formatter.Serialize(stream, item);             stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);             T result = (T)formatter.Deserialize(stream);             stream.Close();             return result;         } 

so,

you can use :

name_list2 = DeepCopy<List<string>>(name_list1); 

OR:

name_list2 = DeepCopy(name_list1);  

will also work.

Answer 2

name_list2 = new List<string>(name_list1); 

This will clone the list.

Edit: This solution only works for primitive types. For objects, see other responses below.