Java Design Patterns: A Hands-On Experience with Real-World Examples

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022

V. SarcarJava Design Patternshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7971-7_18

18. Iterator Pattern

Vaskaran Sarcar¹  

(1)

Garia, Kolkata, India

 

This chapter covers the Iterator pattern.

GoF Definition

It provides a way to access the elements of an aggregate object sequentially without exposing its underlying representation.

Concept

Iterators are generally used to traverse a container (or a collection of objects) to access its elements without knowing how the data are stored internally. It is very useful when you need to traverse different kinds of collection objects in a standard and uniform way. Figure 18-1 shows a sample and the most common diagram for an Iterator ...