Answer by cryo for How to clone or copy a list?

Felix already provided an excellent answer, but I thought I'd do a speed comparison of the various methods:

1. 10.59 sec (105.9us/itn) - copy.deepcopy(old_list)
2. 10.16 sec (101.6us/itn) - pure python Copy() method copying classes with deepcopy
3. 1.488 sec (14.88us/itn) - pure python Copy() method not copying classes (only dicts/lists/tuples)
4. 0.325 sec (3.25us/itn) - for item in old_list: new_list.append(item)
5. 0.217 sec (2.17us/itn) - [i for i in old_list] (a list comprehension)
6. 0.186 sec (1.86us/itn) - copy.copy(old_list)
7. 0.075 sec (0.75us/itn) - list(old_list)
8. 0.053 sec (0.53us/itn) - new_list = []; new_list.extend(old_list)
9. 0.039 sec (0.39us/itn) - old_list[:] (list slicing)

So the fastest is list slicing. But be aware that copy.copy(), list[:] and list(list), unlike copy.deepcopy() and the python version don't copy any lists, dictionaries and class instances in the list, so if the originals change, they will change in the copied list too and vice versa.

(Here's the script if anyone's interested or wants to raise any issues:)

from copy import deepcopy

class old_class:
    def __init__(self):
        self.blah = 'blah'

class new_class(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.blah = 'blah'

dignore = {str: None, unicode: None, int: None, type(None): None}

def Copy(obj, use_deepcopy=True):
    t = type(obj)

    if t in (list, tuple):
        if t == tuple:
            # Convert to a list if a tuple to 
            # allow assigning to when copying
            is_tuple = True
            obj = list(obj)
        else: 
            # Otherwise just do a quick slice copy
            obj = obj[:]
            is_tuple = False

        # Copy each item recursively
        for x in xrange(len(obj)):
            if type(obj[x]) in dignore:
                continue
            obj[x] = Copy(obj[x], use_deepcopy)

        if is_tuple: 
            # Convert back into a tuple again
            obj = tuple(obj)

    elif t == dict: 
        # Use the fast shallow dict copy() method and copy any 
        # values which aren't immutable (like lists, dicts etc)
        obj = obj.copy()
        for k in obj:
            if type(obj[k]) in dignore:
                continue
            obj[k] = Copy(obj[k], use_deepcopy)

    elif t in dignore: 
        # Numeric or string/unicode? 
        # It's immutable, so ignore it!
        pass 

    elif use_deepcopy: 
        obj = deepcopy(obj)
    return obj

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import copy
    from time import time

    num_times = 100000
    L = [None, 'blah', 1, 543.4532, 
         ['foo'], ('bar',), {'blah': 'blah'},
         old_class(), new_class()]

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        Copy(L)
    print 'Custom Copy:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        Copy(L, use_deepcopy=False)
    print 'Custom Copy Only Copying Lists/Tuples/Dicts (no classes):', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        copy.copy(L)
    print 'copy.copy:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        copy.deepcopy(L)
    print 'copy.deepcopy:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        L[:]
    print 'list slicing [:]:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        list(L)
    print 'list(L):', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        [i for i in L]
    print 'list expression(L):', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        a = []
        a.extend(L)
    print 'list extend:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        a = []
        for y in L:
            a.append(y)
    print 'list append:', time()-t

    t = time()
    for i in xrange(num_times):
        a = []
        a.extend(i for i in L)
    print 'generator expression extend:', time()-t