shallow
Shallow copy .copy() which was what I have been doing, copies the top level of the object. So if you have
import copy
original_list = [1, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
shallow_copy = original_list.copy()
shallow_copy[0] = 69
print(original_list) # [1, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
print(shallow_copy) # [69, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
this is fine cuz it copies the top level of the object. But for that inner list, it is not copied so if you do
import copy
original_list = [1, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
shallow_copy = original_list.copy()
shallow_copy[1][0] = 99
print(original_list) # [1, [99, 3], [4, 5]]modifying the inner object in the copied objec t will affect the original object too
deep
but deepcopy() copies outer as well as Inner objects so the original object will not be modified if we change the deepcopy's inner object like
import copy
original_list = [1, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
deep_copy = copy.deepcopy(original_list)
deep_copy[1][0] = 99
print(original_list) # [1, [2, 3], [4, 5]]
