From 6df274bba535468e9eb2892687df9847b7f69d42 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Nicol=C3=A1s=20Ram=C3=ADrez?= <nramirez.uy@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:28:54 -0300
Subject: [PATCH] added copy method to item

---
 docs/topics/items.rst     |  4 ++++
 scrapy/item.py            |  4 ++++
 scrapy/tests/test_item.py | 17 +++++++++++++----
 3 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/docs/topics/items.rst b/docs/topics/items.rst
index 1406fa61b..124d6996a 100644
--- a/docs/topics/items.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/items.rst
@@ -157,6 +157,10 @@ Copying items::
     >>> print product2
     Product(name='Desktop PC', price=1000)
 
+    >>> product3 = product2.copy()
+    >>> print product3
+    Product(name='Desktop PC', price=1000)
+
 Creating dicts from items::
 
     >>> dict(product) # create a dict from all populated values
diff --git a/scrapy/item.py b/scrapy/item.py
index 1d3aae5ac..265fcb8a5 100644
--- a/scrapy/item.py
+++ b/scrapy/item.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ Scrapy Item
 See documentation in docs/topics/item.rst
 """
 
+from copy import deepcopy
 from pprint import pformat
 from UserDict import DictMixin
 
@@ -76,6 +77,9 @@ class DictItem(DictMixin, BaseItem):
     def __repr__(self):
         return pformat(dict(self))
 
+    def copy(self):
+        return self.__class__(self)
+
 
 class Item(DictItem):
 
diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_item.py b/scrapy/tests/test_item.py
index 79cac5fc8..764c94d6e 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_item.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_item.py
@@ -98,8 +98,8 @@ class ItemTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_metaclass(self):
         class TestItem(Item):
             name = Field()
-            keys = Field() 
-            values = Field() 
+            keys = Field()
+            values = Field()
 
         i = TestItem()
         i['name'] = u'John'
@@ -114,8 +114,8 @@ class ItemTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_metaclass_inheritance(self):
         class BaseItem(Item):
             name = Field()
-            keys = Field() 
-            values = Field() 
+            keys = Field()
+            values = Field()
 
         class TestItem(BaseItem):
             keys = Field()
@@ -133,6 +133,15 @@ class ItemTest(unittest.TestCase):
         i['name'] = u'John'
         self.assertEqual(dict(i), {'name': u'John'})
 
+    def test_copy(self):
+        class TestItem(Item):
+            name = Field()
+        item = TestItem({'name':'lower'})
+        copied_item = item.copy()
+        self.assertNotEqual(id(item), id(copied_item))
+        copied_item['name'] = copied_item['name'].upper()
+        self.assertNotEqual(item['name'], copied_item['name'])
+
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()