Object.clone() throwing exception for an Object instance

Object.clone() throwing exception on a call on a Object type instance - why?

If we try to call the Object.clone() method on an instance of type Object, then it throws CloneNotSupportedException. Looks strange, isn't it? After all clone() is a method of the Object class only, so what's the problem when a call to this method is being made on an instance of Object type. Well... the problem is that Object.clone() method can only be called on an instance of a class if that class implements the marker interface named Cloneable and the cosmic super class Object doesn't implement this interface :-)

If we want to use the clone() method then we simply need to implement this interface and we'll instantly get the license to use the default cloning functionality which is a simple field-by-field copy of the members. Read more about clong in this article - Cloning in Java - How it works?