c# - What are the practical usage of Cloning -

can give me practical usage clone used, understand how done , types in it, dont see practical usage. read somewhere used save state of object, still think entire state of object important.

if have object y encapsulated (for instance private) within object x, provide accessor method (such gety()) risk returning reference private object , that's not good. don't want client code able reference it. instead might copy or clone object within gety(). mentioned though copying preferred vs. clone -- see effective java item 11.

here example code:

public class x {     private date y = new date();      // other code here      public date gety() {         //this bad:         //return y;         //this good:         return new date(y);     }