I need to create clones of database entities (with some specific fields changed and new IDs generated).
The use case is that the database table contains "template rows", and whenever a new row is required, it starts life as a copy of a template row. The copying operation should not have to enumerate all fields that need to be copied, since that would be fragile under database schema changes.

I see three approaches: Object#clone, BeanUtils.cloneBean, and serialize/unserialize.

Any advice on how to best proceed? I can see various advantage and disadvantages for any way, but I don't know which are even relevant.
Things to consider:
* Efficiency of the flat clone itself
* How to initialize Set members (they should be empty for the clone)
* Shouldn't trigger initialization for lazily-initialized members