Java Iterable
Jakob Jenkov |
The Java Iterable interface represents a collection of objects which is iterable -
meaning which can be iterated. This means, that a class that implements the Java Iterable interface can have its elements
iterated. You can iterate the objects of a Java Iterable in three ways:
Via the , by obtaining
a Java Iterator from the Iterable, or by calling the Java Iterable
forEach() method. You will see examples of all three iteration methods later in
this Java Iterable tutorial.
Java Iterable Tutorial Video
If you prefer video, I have a video version of this Java Iterable tutorial here:
Java Iterable Tutorial
Iterate an Iterable With the for-each Loop
The first way to iterate the elements of a Java Iterable is via the
Java for-each loop loop.
Below is an example showing how to iterate the elements of a Java List via
the Java for-each loop. Since the Java List interface extends the Collection
interface, and the Collection interface extends the Iterable interface, a
List object can be used with the for-each loop.
List<String> list = new ArrayList><();
list.add("one");
list.add("two");
list.add("three");
for( String element : list ){
System.out.println( element.toString() );
}
This example first creates a new List and adds 3 elements to it. Then it uses a for-each loop
to iterate the elements of the List, and print out the toString() value of each element.
Iterate an Iterable via an Iterator
The second way you can iterate the elements of a Java Iterable is by obtaining a Java Iterator from it by
calling the Iterable iterator() method. You can then iterate through that Iterator like you
would with any other Iterator. You can read more about the Java Iterator in my
Java Iterator tutorial . Here is an example of iterating the elements of a
Java Iterable (a Java List in this example):
List<String> list = new ArrayList><();
list.add("one");
list.add("two");
list.add("three");
Iterator<String> iterator = list.iterator();
while(iterator.hasNext()) {
String element = iterator.next();
System.out.println( element );
}
Iterate an Iterable via its forEach() Method
The third way to iterate the elements of a Java Iterable is via its forEach() method.
The forEach() method takes a Java Lambda Expression
as parameter. This lambda expression is called once for each element in the Iterable.
Here is an example of iterating the elements of an Iterable via its forEach() method:
List<String> list = new ArrayList><();
list.add("one");
list.add("two");
list.add("three");
list.forEach( (element) -> {
System.out.println( element );
});
Iterable Interface Definition
The Java Iterable interface has three methods of which only one needs to be implemented.
The other two have default implementations. Here is the the definition of the Iterable interface:
public interface Iterable<T> {
Iterator<T> iterator();
Spliterator<T> spliterator();
void forEach(Consumer<? super T> action);
}
The method you must implement is named iterator(). This method
must return a Java Iterator which can be used to iterate the elements of the object
implementing the Iterable interface. Obtaining the Iterator happens behind the scenes,
so you don't see that done. The Java compiler takes care of generating the code for that, when you use a
Iterable with the for-each loop.
Implementations of Iterable in Java
The Java Iterable interface (java.lang.Iterable) is one of the root
interfaces of the Java Collections API. Therefore,
there are several classes in Java that implements the Java Iterable interface. These classes
can thus have their internal elements iterated.
There are also several Java interfaces that extends the Iterable interface. Classes implementing
an interface which extends the Iterable interface thus also implement the Iterable interface.
Such classes can also have their elements iterated.
The Collection interface extends Iterable, so all subtypes of Collection
also implement the Iterable interface. For instance, both the Java List and Set
interfaces extend the Collection interface, and thereby also the Iterable interface.
Implementing the Iterable Interface
How you implement this Iterable interface so that you can use it with the
for-each loop, is explained in the text
Implementing the Iterable Interface,
in my Java Generics tutorial.
Here I will just show you a simple Iterable implementation example though:
public class Persons implements Iterable {
private List<Person> persons = new ArrayList<Person>();
public Iterator<Person> iterator() {
return this.persons.iterator();
}
}
An instance of Persons can be used with the Java for-each loop like this:
Persons persons = ... //obtain Persons instance with Person objects inside.
for(Person person : persons) {
// do something with person object.
}
Obtaining a Spliterator
You can obtain a Java Spliterator from a Java Iterable via its spliterator() method.
I won't go into the the Spliterator interface here - just show how to obtain a Spliterator from an Iterable:
List<String> list = new ArrayList><();
list.add("one");
list.add("two");
list.add("three");
Spliterator<String> spliterator = list.spliterator();
Iterable Performance
If you are writing some code that needs to iterate a collection lots of times in a tight loop, let's say
iterate a Java List thousands of times per second, iterating the List
via the Java for-each loop is slower than iterating the list via a standard for-loop as seen here:
() .
for(int i=0; i<list.size(); i++) {
Object obj = list.get(i);
}
The reason the for-each loop is slower is, that each iteration will call the List iterator()
method, which will create a new Iterator object. Creating a new object thousands, perhaps even millions
of times per second does have a small performance penalty compared to just iterating the List using
a standard for-loop.
For most standard business applications where collections are iterated occasionally, this performance difference is irrelevant. It only matters for very tight loops that are executed thousands of times per second.
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