/ Design Patterns / Behavioral patterns / Iterator

Iterator Design Pattern in Java: Before and after

Before

The class SomeClassWithData provides access to its internal data structure. Clients can accidentally or maliciously trash that data structure. 

class IntegerBox {
    private final List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();

    public void add(int in) {
        list.add(in);
    }

    public List getData() {
        return list;
    }
}

public class IteratorDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        IntegerBox box = new IntegerBox();
        for (int i = 9; i > 0; --i) {
            box.add(i);
        }
        Collection integerList = box.getData();
        for (Object anIntegerList : integerList) {
            System.out.print(anIntegerList + "  ");
        }
        System.out.println();
        integerList.clear();
        integerList = box.getData();
        System.out.println("size of data is: " + integerList.size());
    }
}

Output

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
size of data is 0


After

Take traversal-of-a-collection functionality out of the collection and promote it to "full object status". This simplifies the collection, allows many traversals to be active simultaneously, and decouples collection algorithms from collection data structures. 

class IntegerBox {
    private List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();

    public class Iterator {
        private IntegerBox box;
        private java.util.Iterator iterator;
        private int value;

        public Iterator(IntegerBox integerBox) {
            box = integerBox;
        }

        public void first() {
            iterator = box.list.iterator();
            next();
        }

        public void next() {
            try {
                value = (Integer)iterator.next();
            } catch (NoSuchElementException ex) {
                value =  -1;
            }
        }

        public boolean isDone() {
            return value == -1;
        }

        public int currentValue() {
            return value;
        }
    }

    public void add(int in) {
        list.add(in);
    }

    public Iterator getIterator() {
        return new Iterator(this);
    }
}

public class IteratorDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        IntegerBox integerBox = new IntegerBox();
        for (int i = 9; i > 0; --i) {
            integerBox.add(i);
        }
        // getData() has been removed.
        // Client has to use Iterator.
        IntegerBox.Iterator firstItr = integerBox.getIterator();
        IntegerBox.Iterator secondItr = integerBox.getIterator();
        for (firstItr.first(); !firstItr.isDone(); firstItr.next()) {
            System.out.print(firstItr.currentValue() + "  ");
        }
        System.out.println();
        // Two simultaneous iterations
        for (firstItr.first(), secondItr.first(); !firstItr.isDone(); firstItr.next(), secondItr.next()) {
            System.out.print(firstItr.currentValue() + " " + secondItr.currentValue() + "  ");
        }
    }
}

Output

9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
9 9  8 8  7 7  6 6  5 5  4 4  3 3  2 2  1 1

Code examples

Java Iterator in Java: Before and after Iterator in Java
C++ Iterator in C++ Iterator in C++: Using operators instead of methods
PHP Iterator in PHP
Delphi Iterator in Delphi
Python Iterator in Python