How can I duplicate, or copy a Core Data Managed Object?

Here’s a class I created to perform a “deep copy” of managed objects: attributes and relationships. Note that this does not check against loops in the object graph. (Thanks Jaanus for the starting off point…)

@interface ManagedObjectCloner : NSObject {
}
+(NSManagedObject *)clone:(NSManagedObject *)source inContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *)context;
@end

@implementation ManagedObjectCloner

+(NSManagedObject *) clone:(NSManagedObject *)source inContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *)context{
    NSString *entityName = [[source entity] name];

    //create new object in data store
    NSManagedObject *cloned = [NSEntityDescription
                               insertNewObjectForEntityForName:entityName
                               inManagedObjectContext:context];

    //loop through all attributes and assign then to the clone
    NSDictionary *attributes = [[NSEntityDescription
                                 entityForName:entityName
                                 inManagedObjectContext:context] attributesByName];

    for (NSString *attr in attributes) {
        [cloned setValue:[source valueForKey:attr] forKey:attr];
    }

    //Loop through all relationships, and clone them.
    NSDictionary *relationships = [[NSEntityDescription
                                   entityForName:entityName
                                   inManagedObjectContext:context] relationshipsByName];
    for (NSRelationshipDescription *rel in relationships){
        NSString *keyName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",rel];
        //get a set of all objects in the relationship
        NSMutableSet *sourceSet = [source mutableSetValueForKey:keyName];
        NSMutableSet *clonedSet = [cloned mutableSetValueForKey:keyName];
        NSEnumerator *e = [sourceSet objectEnumerator];
        NSManagedObject *relatedObject;
        while ( relatedObject = [e nextObject]){
            //Clone it, and add clone to set
            NSManagedObject *clonedRelatedObject = [ManagedObjectCloner clone:relatedObject 
                                                          inContext:context];
            [clonedSet addObject:clonedRelatedObject];
        }

    }

    return cloned;
}


@end