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In Java, the assignment operator duplicates the reference, not the object. Because of this, the need of a method clone() to duplicate an object.

The default implementation of Object.clone() performs a shallow copy. To perform a deep copy, the method must be overridden, making sure to call the same method in the superclass.

This is an example of clone():

class Order implements Cloneable{

	private Date paymentDate;

	public Object clone(){
		try{
			Order clone = (Order)super.clone();
			clone.paymentDate = (Date)paymentDate.clone();
			return clone;
		}
		catch(CloneNotSupportedException e){
			System.out.println(e);
			return null;
		}
	}

	public Date getPaymentDate() {
		return paymentDate;
	}

	public void setPaymentDate(Date paymentDate) {
		this.paymentDate = paymentDate;
	}
}