Re: Hello and NodeIterator Revisited

Hi all,

I had one thought on the whole 'multiple live iterators clogging up memory'
problem - perhaps the NodeIterators passed from getNodes() or
getNodeIterator() or whatever it is this round return a 'throw away'
iterator that maps back to a single NodeIterator that actually contains the
child Nodes.  Eg.

public class ThrowAwayNodeIterator implements NodeIterator()
{
    private NodeIterator realIterator;
    private Node current;

    public ThrowAwayNodeIterator(NodeIterator real)
    {    realIterator = real;    }

    public Node toFirst()
    {    current = realIterator.toFirst();
        return current;
    }

    public Node toNode(Node node)
    {    current =  realIterator.toNode(node);
        return current;
    }

    public Node toNext()
    {    realIterator.toNode(current);
        current = realIterator.toNext();
        return current;
    }
    // etc.
}

The main problem is that for toNext and toPrevious, you have to call
realIterator.toNode(current) - which may or may not be efficient, but it
cuts down on keeping every Iterator created in sync (since there is only one
iterator with actual nodes), as well as meaning you can forget about it
later.

Another problem is if the Node stored as 'current' gets deleted, and toNext
is called, the call to realIterator.toNode(current) will make the call to
toNext _very_ unreliable.  Back to the old 'what happens when it's deleted'
problem - which I haven't seen a good solution for yet.  Ah well.

David Peterson

Received on Monday, 4 May 1998 09:49:07 UTC