Answer
A shallow copy creates a new outer container but reuses references to nested objects. • copy.copy() performs a shallow copy. • Many containers also provide their own shallow-copy operations. • Changing a shared nested mutable object is visible through both containers.
💡 Simple Example
import copy
original = [[1], [2]]
cloned = copy.copy(original)
cloned[0].append(9)
print(original)
Output
[[1, 9], [2]]
⚡ Quick Revision
A shallow copy duplicates the outer object but shares nested objects.