Attributes

All attributes live in the NanoByte.CloneGenerator namespace and are available as soon as you reference the package. There is no runtime package to reference.

[Cloneable]

Opts a class in. The class must be partial, otherwise you get a compiler error.

[Cloneable]
public partial class Address
{
    public string? Street { get; set; }
    public string? City { get; set; }
    public string? Country { get; set; }
}

MethodName

Only relevant when a base type already declares a Clone() method with a different return type. The generated method returning the concrete type is called Clone + the type name by default; set MethodName to override that.

// Would be called CloneMobileNumber() by default
[Cloneable(MethodName = "CloneNumber")]
public sealed partial class MobileNumber : PhoneNumber
{}

Use this to keep an existing public API intact when replacing hand-written clone methods. See Inheritance for how the default name is derived.

[IgnoreClone]

Excludes a property or field. The clone keeps whatever value the member's initializer or constructor gives it.

[Cloneable]
public partial class AddressBook
{
    public List<Contact> Contacts { get; } = [];

    /// <summary>Where this address book will be saved. Deliberately not inherited by clones.</summary>
    [IgnoreClone]
    internal string FilePath = GetDefaultPath();
}

[ShallowClone]

Copies a member by reference even when its type is cloneable, so the clone shares the instance.

Use it where sharing is the point — heavyweight state, delegates, or a back-reference whose identity must be preserved:

[Cloneable]
public partial class Contact
{
    public string? LastName { get; set; }

    /// <summary>The group this contact belongs to. Cloning it would detach the copy from the address book.</summary>
    [ShallowClone]
    public Group? Owner { get; set; }
}

[assembly: CloneShallow(typeof(T))]

Registers a type as safe to copy by reference across the whole assembly, typically because it is immutable. Use this instead of putting [ShallowClone] on every member of that type.

[assembly: CloneShallow(typeof(CountryCode))]
[assembly: CloneShallow(typeof(PostalCode))]

A good workflow is to convert your types first and let the compiler errors tell you which types to register, rather than trying to list them up front.