What is the difference between shallow copy, deepcopy and normal assignment operation?

Question

import copy

a = "deepak"
b = 1, 2, 3, 4
c = [1, 2, 3, 4]
d = {1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30}

a1 = copy.copy(a)
b1 = copy.copy(b)
c1 = copy.copy(c)
d1 = copy.copy(d)


print("immutable - id(a)==id(a1)", id(a) == id(a1))
print("immutable - id(b)==id(b1)", id(b) == id(b1))
print("mutable - id(c)==id(c1)", id(c) == id(c1))
print("mutable - id(d)==id(d1)", id(d) == id(d1))

I get the following results:

immutable - id(a)==id(a1) True
immutable - id(b)==id(b1) True
mutable - id(c)==id(c1) False
mutable - id(d)==id(d1) False

If I perform deepcopy:

a1 = copy.deepcopy(a)
b1 = copy.deepcopy(b)
c1 = copy.deepcopy(c)
d1 = copy.deepcopy(d)

results are the same:

immutable - id(a)==id(a1) True
immutable - id(b)==id(b1) True
mutable - id(c)==id(c1) False
mutable - id(d)==id(d1) False

If I work on assignment operations:

a1 = a
b1 = b
c1 = c
d1 = d

then results are:

immutable - id(a)==id(a1) True
immutable - id(b)==id(b1) True
mutable - id(c)==id(c1) True
mutable - id(d)==id(d1) True

Can somebody explain what exactly makes a difference between the copies? Is it something related to mutable & immutable objects? If so, can you please explain it to me?

Answer 1

Normal assignment operations will simply point the new variable towards the existing object. The docs explain the difference between shallow and deep copies:

The difference between shallow and deep copying is only relevant for compound objects (objects that contain other objects, like lists or class instances):

• A shallow copy constructs a new compound object and then (to the extent possible) inserts references into it to the objects found in the original.

• A deep copy constructs a new compound object and then, recursively, inserts copies into it of the objects found in the original.

Here's a little demonstration:

import copy

a = [1, 2, 3]
b = [4, 5, 6]
c = [a, b]

Using normal assignment operatings to copy:

d = c

print id(c) == id(d)          # True - d is the same object as c
print id(c[0]) == id(d[0])    # True - d[0] is the same object as c[0]

Using a shallow copy:

d = copy.copy(c)

print id(c) == id(d)          # False - d is now a new object
print id(c[0]) == id(d[0])    # True - d[0] is the same object as c[0]

Using a deep copy:

d = copy.deepcopy(c)

print id(c) == id(d)          # False - d is now a new object
print id(c[0]) == id(d[0])    # False - d[0] is now a new object