Shallow copying and deep copying are two ways to make copies of objects in Python. Let's look at the differences between them with examples, especially for tuples:

1. Shallow Copying:

   • Shallow copying creates a new object but does not create copies of nested objects. Instead, it copies references to the nested objects.

   • If the original tuple contains mutable objects (like lists), changes made to the nested objects in the copied tuple will affect the original tuple and vice versa.

   • Shallow copying can be performed using the copy() method or the copy module's copy() function.

import copy

original_tuple = ([1, 2], [3, 4])
shallow_copy_tuple = copy.copy(original_tuple)

# Modifying the nested list in the shallow copy
shallow_copy_tuple[0].append(5)

print("Original Tuple:", original_tuple)   # Output: ([1, 2, 5], [3, 4])
print("Shallow Copy Tuple:", shallow_copy_tuple)   # Output: ([1, 2, 5], [3, 4])

2. Deep Copying:

   • Deep copying creates a completely independent copy of the original object, including all nested objects. Changes made to the nested objects in the copied tuple do not affect the original tuple, and vice versa.

   • Deep copying can be performed using the deepcopy() function from the copy module.

import copy

original_tuple = ([1, 2], [3, 4])
deep_copy_tuple = copy.deepcopy(original_tuple)

# Modifying the nested list in the deep copy
deep_copy_tuple[0].append(5)

print("Original Tuple:", original_tuple)   # Output: ([1, 2], [3, 4])
print("Deep Copy Tuple:", deep_copy_tuple)   # Output: ([1, 2, 5], [3, 4])

In summary:

• Shallow copying creates a new object with references to the nested objects, so changes to nested objects in one tuple affect the other.

• Deep copying creates an entirely new object with copies of all nested objects, so changes to nested objects in one tuple do not affect the other.