Explain the difference between a shallow copy and a deep copy of data.

They differ in copying the pointer variable. If, for example, “first” and “sec” are integer pointers and the pointer first points to the following array,

After the execution of the statement “sec=first”

In case of shallow copy, both “first”, and “sec” points to the same data item as follows,

This is called as shallow copy, where “2” or more point of the same type points to the same memory (data).

In case of deep copy, for the assignment, the below thing is carried out,

sec= new int[5];

for(int j=0;j<5;j++)

                sec[j]=first[j];

Here, both “first” and “second” point to their own data.