Avoid Overloading Clone
ID |
java.clone_no_overload |
Severity |
low |
Remediation Complexity |
trivial |
Remediation Risk |
low |
Remediation Effort |
low |
Resource |
Reliability |
Language |
Java |
Tags |
clone, reliability |
Description
Reports classes that have more than one method named clone(). Overloading clone() creates confusion and violates the Cloneable contract.
Rationale
The Cloneable contract expects a single clone() method with no parameters returning Object. Having multiple clone methods with different signatures misleads callers about which one the Cloneable mechanism invokes.
// Bad — overloaded clone
public Object clone() throws CloneNotSupportedException { return super.clone(); }
public void clone(int depth) { /* ... */ }Remediation
Keep only the standard clone() signature. Use a descriptive factory method name for alternative copy strategies:
// Good — single clone, named factory for variants
public Object clone() throws CloneNotSupportedException { return super.clone(); }
public MyClass deepCopy(int depth) { /* ... */ }