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Iterator Design Pattern in C++: Using operators instead of methods

Discussion. John Lakos suggests the GOF and STL iterator interfaces are: error-prone (possibility of misspelling method names), clumsy, and require too much typing. This design uses nothing but "intuitive" operators. Notice also that no createIterator() was specified. The user creates these iterators as local variables, and no clean-up is necessary. 

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Stack
{
    int items[10];
    int sp;
  public:
    friend class StackIter;
    Stack()
    {
        sp =  - 1;
    }
    void push(int in)
    {
        items[++sp] = in;
    }
    int pop()
    {
        return items[sp--];
    }
    bool isEmpty()
    {
        return (sp ==  - 1);
    }
};

class StackIter
{
    const Stack &stk;
    int index;
  public:
    StackIter(const Stack &s): stk(s)
    {
        index = 0;
    }
    void operator++()
    {
        index++;
    }
    bool operator()()
    {
        return index != stk.sp + 1;
    }
    int operator *()
    {
        return stk.items[index];
    }
};

bool operator == (const Stack &l, const Stack &r)
{
  StackIter itl(l), itr(r);
  for (; itl(); ++itl, ++itr)
    if (*itl !=  *itr)
      break;
  return !itl() && !itr();
}

int main()
{
  Stack s1;
  int i;
  for (i = 1; i < 5; i++)
    s1.push(i);
  Stack s2(s1), s3(s1), s4(s1), s5(s1);
  s3.pop();
  s5.pop();
  s4.push(2);
  s5.push(9);
  cout << "1 == 2 is " << (s1 == s2) << endl;
  cout << "1 == 3 is " << (s1 == s3) << endl;
  cout << "1 == 4 is " << (s1 == s4) << endl;
  cout << "1 == 5 is " << (s1 == s5) << endl;
}

Output

1 == 2 is 1
1 == 3 is 0
1 == 4 is 0
1 == 5 is 0

Code examples

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