I'm currently trying out the new MemoryCache in .Net 4 to cache a few bits of data in one of our apps. The trouble I have is the objects are updated and the cache appears to be persisting the changes e.g.

public IEnumerable<SomeObject> GetFromDatabase(){
    const string _cacheKeyGetDisplayTree = "SomeKey"; 
    ObjectCache _cache = MemoryCache.Default;
    var objectInCache = _cache.Get(_cacheKeyGetDisplayTree) as IEnumerable<SomeObject>;
    if (objectInCache != null)
        return objectInCache.ToList();

    // Do something to get the items
    _cache.Add(_cacheKeyGetDisplayTree, categories, new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.UtcNow.AddHours(1)));

    return categories.ToList();
}

public IEnumerable<SomeObject> GetWithIndentation(){
    var categories = GetFromDatabase();

    foreach (var c in categories)
    {
        c.Name = "-" + c.Name;
    }

    return categories;
}

If I were calling GetWithIndentation() first and then later calling GetFromDatabase() I would expect it to return the original list of SomeObject but instead it returns the modified items (with "-" prefixed on the name).

I thought ToList() destroyed the reference but it still seems to persist the changes. I'm sure it's obvious but can anyone spot where I'm going wrong?

c# memorycache
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