The copy constructor is used to initialize the new object with the previously created object of the same class. By default compiler wrote a shallow copy. Shallow copy works fine when dynamic memory allocation is not involved because when dynamic memory allocation is involved then both objects will points towards the same memory location in a heap, Therefore to remove this problem we wrote deep copy so both objects have their own copy of attributes in a memory. In order to read the details with complete examples and explanations you could see the article C++ constructors.

为了便于理解，你可以参考这篇文章: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~scottm/cs307/handouts/deepCopying.htm

浅拷贝:

深拷贝:

我从下面几句话中理解到。

浅拷贝将对象的值类型(int, float, bool)字段复制到目标对象中，对象的引用类型(字符串，类等)被复制为目标对象中的引用。在此目标引用类型将指向源对象的内存位置。

深度复制将对象的值和引用类型复制到目标对象的完整新副本中。这意味着值类型和引用类型都将被分配一个新的内存位置。

深拷贝

深度复制复制所有字段，并复制由字段指向的动态分配的内存。当对象与其引用的对象一起复制时，就会发生深度复制。

浅拷贝

浅复制是对象的逐位复制。创建一个新对象，该对象具有原始对象中值的精确副本。如果对象的任何字段是对其他对象的引用，则只复制引用地址，即只复制内存地址。

简而言之，这取决于什么指向什么。在浅拷贝中，对象B指向对象a在内存中的位置。在深度复制中，对象A的内存位置中的所有东西都被复制到对象B的内存位置。

这篇wiki文章有一个很好的图表。

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_copy

浅拷贝不会创建新的引用，但深拷贝会创建新的引用。

下面是程序解释的深拷贝和浅拷贝。

public class DeepAndShollowCopy {
    int id;
    String name;
    List<String> testlist = new ArrayList<>();

    /*
    // To performing Shallow Copy 
    // Note: Here we are not creating any references. 
      public DeepAndShollowCopy(int id, String name, List<String>testlist)
       { 

       System.out.println("Shallow Copy for Object initialization");
       this.id = id; 
       this.name = name; 
       this.testlist = testlist; 

       }
    */  

    // To performing Deep Copy 
    // Note: Here we are creating one references( Al arraylist object ). 
    public DeepAndShollowCopy(int id, String name, List<String> testlist) {
        System.out.println("Deep Copy for Object initialization");
        this.id = id;
        this.name = name;
        String item;
        List<String> Al = new ArrayList<>();
        Iterator<String> itr = testlist.iterator();
        while (itr.hasNext()) {
            item = itr.next();
            Al.add(item);
        }
        this.testlist = Al;
    }


    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
        list.add("Java");
        list.add("Oracle");
        list.add("C++");
        DeepAndShollowCopy copy=new DeepAndShollowCopy(10,"Testing", list);
        System.out.println(copy.toString());
    }
    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "DeepAndShollowCopy [id=" + id + ", name=" + name + ", testlist=" + testlist + "]";
    }
}