Cloning Repository Items

The atg.repository.RepositoryUtils class includes a method you can use to clone a repository item. This creates a copy of a repository item in a repository without adding the item to the repository. A copy can be a deep copy or a shallow copy. Furthermore, you can specify a list of properties to exclude from the copy.

The full signature of the cloneItem method is:

public static MutableRepositoryItem cloneItem(RepositoryItem pItem,
                                              boolean pDeepCopy,
                                              Map pPropExceptions,
                                              Map pExcludedProperties,
                                              MutableRepository pDestRepository,
                                              String pId)
                                       throws RepositoryException,
                                              DuplicateIdException

The cloneItem method’s parameters are as follows:

Parameter	Description
`pItem`	Item to copy.
`pDeepCopy`	The mode of the copy. If `true`, the method creates a deep copy of the item and its properties. Otherwise, the method creates a shallow copy, only getting references of child `RepositoryItems`. Note that shallow copying will only work if the source and destination repositories are the same.
`pPropExceptions`	Hierarchical map of property name exceptions to the above mode. Keys are property names, while values are either null or, if the property is another repository item, another Map. For example, if you clone a `product` item using `pDeepCopy=true`, you could add the key `parentCategory` with a null value into `pPropExceptions`. This would result in a shallow copy of the `product.parentCategory`. Alternatively, you could add the key `parentCategory` but set the value to another map of exceptions that included the key/value pair `keywords=null`. This would result in a deep copy of `product.parentCategory` but a shallow copy of the `product.parentCategory.keywords`. Optional.
`pExcludedProperties`	Properties to exclude from the clone. Keys are item descriptor names and the values are collections of property names to exclude. Optional.
`pDestRepository`	Repository to copy the new item into. If the source and destination repositories are the same, properties that are items will be cloned to the repository of the source item-property. Optional; if null, the new item is copied to source repository.
`pId`	Repository ID to use in the copy of the item. Optional; if null, a unique ID is automatically generated.

ATG Repository Guide

Cloning Repository Items