The original, called blue print, used for cloning, should not be used in the system, only be used for cloning. The cloned objects contain only the data but the blue print also the function code. The blue print is the one without a unique number at the end of the object's file_name(). The clone_object() function never returns a blue print.
Note that the pathname must be complete, which means there are no relative paths allowed.
object torch;
torch = clone_object("/obj/torch");