# Copy of missing

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/copy-of-missing/38814>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [May 5, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/copy-of-missing/38814 "2020-05-05T15:19:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maarten\_van\_damme](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maarten_van_damme/32/6946_2.png) [@maarten\_van\_damme](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maarten_van_damme)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/copy-of-missing/38814/1 "2020-05-05T15:19:24Z")

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should copy(missing) be defined as missing?

I have an array of objects that are either there or missing. I’d like to write copy.(data), but copy(missing) is undefined. Is there a simple reason why this is not defined

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/copy-of-missing/38814/2 "2020-05-05T15:49:38Z")

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Generally `copy` is only defined for container-like objects (that have some structure).

Why not just `copy` or `deepcopy` the array?

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**Author:** ![maarten\_van\_damme](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maarten_van_damme/32/6946_2.png) [@maarten\_van\_damme](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maarten_van_damme)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/copy-of-missing/38814/3 "2020-05-05T16:15:33Z")

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deepcopy does the trick, I don’t know exactly why I was initially using copy.()