iterator.md

Iterator Pattern

Problem

We have an aggregate object and we want to provide a way to access its collection of sub-objects without exposing its underlying representation.

Solution

There are two proposed solutions: external iterators and internal iterators.

External Iterators

The iterator is a separate object from the aggregate, which is passed in as an argument to initialize the iterator. The iterator keeps a reference to the current index and provides an interface to ask if there are items left, in order to get the current item and the next one.

Internal Iterators

With internal iterators we use a code block to pass the logic down into the aggregate. A really good example of this approach is the Array method each.

Example

An example of an external iterator for a Ruby array might look something like this:

class ArrayIterator
  def initialize(array)
    @array = array
    @index = 0
  end

  def has_next?
    @index < @array.length
  end

  def item
    @array[@index]
  end

  def next_item
    value = @array[@index]
    @index += 1
    value
  end
end

Thanks to duck typing, this implementation would work on any class that has the length method and can be indexed by an integer, such as String. To create an aggregate class with an internal iterator, we'll make use of the Enumerable mixin module. We only have to make sure that our iterator method is named each and we implement the comparison operator <=>. By doing this, we automatically get a great number of handy methods, like include?, all? or sort. As an example, we'll consider two classes: Account and Portfolio, which manage multiple accounts.

class Account
  attr_accessor :name, :balance

  def initialize(name, balance)
    @name = name
    @balance = balance
  end

  def <=>(other)
    balance <=> other.balance
  end
end

class Portfolio
  include Enumerable

  def initialize
    @accounts = []
  end

  def each(&block)
    @accounts.each(&block)
  end

  def add_account(account)
    @accounts << account
  end
end

my_portfolio.any? {|account| account.balance > 2000}