We tend to think of the iterator pattern as simply a mechanism to access a collection of items in some sort of order. However, the motivation for the iterator pattern goes quite a bit beyond this everyday requirement. It is specifically designed to hide how you decide to structure the collection, but still provide a uniform interface to traverse and access its elements. We will look at a couple of examples where we change how the collection is implemented but keep the client oblivious to the change.
Let’s take a look at the class diagram to determine the relationships between the classes in the iterator pattern.
Continue reading ‘The Iterator Pattern: Flexible implementation of collections’
Recent Comments