You can easily create a superficial clone with object‘s protected method MemberwiseClone. Example: public abstract class AbstractCloneable : ICloneable { public object Clone() { return this.MemberwiseClone(); } } If you don’t need anything like a deep copy, you will not have to do anything in the child classes. The MemberwiseClone method creates a shallow copy … Read more
You shouldn’t. Microsoft recommends against implementing ICloneable because there’s no clear indication from the interface whether your Clone method performs a “deep” or “shallow” clone. See this blog post from Brad Abrams back in 2003(!) for more information.
In addition to Andrey’s reply (which I agree with, +1) – when ICloneable is done, you can also choose explicit implementation to make the public Clone() return a typed object: public Foo Clone() { /* your code */ } object ICloneable.Clone() {return Clone();} Of course there is a second issue with a generic ICloneable<T> – … Read more