And after another experiment or two, it would appear that the depth of the copy produced by either dup or clone is the same and depends entirely on what intialize_copy does. -- Rick DeNatale Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale