Objects of same class have the same properties even though declared differently when pushing segue - ios

Question

I've been stuck trying to fix an issue in my application that prevents me from getting my desired result.
When pushing segue to the next view controller, I passed two objects of the same class to var original:[Person] = [] and var edited:[Person] = []
if (segue.identifier == "showSummary") {
let vc = segue.destination as! SummaryViewController
vc.original = myObject
vc.edited = Bill.calculateBill(myObject, switchServiceCharge.isOn, switchGST.isOn)
vc.gst = (switchServiceCharge.isOn, switchGST.isOn)
}
Before calculateBill, the original value of a property inside is 11.
The calculateBill is a class function in another class Bill:
class func calculateBill(_ bill: [Person],_ svcCharge: Bool,_ GST: Bool) -> [Person] {
var mutableBill = bill
for i in 0 ..< mutableBill.count {
for j in 0 ..< mutableBill[i].items.count {
let tax = Bill.getGSTForIndividual(mutableBill[i].items[j].itemPrice, svcCharge, GST)
mutableBill[i].items[j].itemPrice += tax
}
}
return mutableBill
}
class func getGSTForIndividual(_ individualAmt: Decimal,_ svcCharge: Bool,_ GST: Bool) -> Decimal {
var taxCost : Decimal = 0.00
let SERVICE_CHARGE = Bill.getServiceCharge() //0.10
let GOODS_SERVICE_TAX = Bill.getGST() //0.07
if (svcCharge && GST) {
taxCost = individualAmt * SERVICE_CHARGE
taxCost = taxCost + ((individualAmt + taxCost) * GOODS_SERVICE_TAX)
}
else if (!svcCharge && GST) {
taxCost = individualAmt * GOODS_SERVICE_TAX
}
else if (svcCharge && !GST) {
taxCost = individualAmt * SERVICE_CHARGE
}
else {
taxCost = 0.00
}
return taxCost
}
When I did a print() to test whether the properties inside are different, they both yield the same results somehow...
print(original[0].items[0].itemPrice) //12.947000000000000123904, originally 11
print(edited[0].items[0].itemPrice) //12.947000000000000123904
What exactly is going on and why do both the objects have the same properties even though I have declared them differently?

Answer 1

I'm guessing that Person is probably declared as a class, not a struct. This means that it's a reference type, and when you:
var mutableBill = bill
you're not actually making a copy of bill, but rather another reference to the same object. So, when you change the properties on mutableBill, you also change the properties on bill, since they both point to the same object.
The solution is to make an actual copy of bill. The two options are either to declare Person as a struct, in which case you will always get a copy, or else to make an initializer on Person that takes another Person and initializes itself using the passed-in Person's properties:
init(person: Person) { ... }