Passing Reference types by value in C#

Question

I want to pass a reference type by value to a method in C#. Is there a way to do it.

In C++, I could always rely on the copy constructor to come into play if I wanted to pass by Value. Is there any way in C# except: 1. Explicitly creating a new object 2. Implementing IClonable and then calling Clone method.

Here's a small example:

Let's take a class A in C++ which implements a copy constructor.

A method func1(Class a), I can call it by saying func1(objA) (Automatically creates a copy)

Does anything similar exist in C#. By the way, I'm using Visual Studio 2005.

Answer 1

No, there is no copy-constructor equivalent in C#. What you are passing (by value) is a reference.

ICloneable is also risky, since it is poorly defined whether that is deep vs shallow (plus it isn't very well supported). Another option is to use serialization, but again, that can quickly draw in much more data than you intended.

If the concern is that you don't want the method making changes, you could consider making the class immutable. Then nobody can do anything nasty to it.