iterate through recursive objects

Question

I am trying to iterate through a recursive object but Java has no support for this from what I know.

For example, given the object Item:

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Answer 1

If you don't have cycles within the parent-child tree you can use a simple recursive function to determine the number of descendants:

public class Item {
    ...

    public int getDescendantCount() {
        int count = 0;
        if (children != null) {
             count += children.size();
             for (Item child : children)
                  count += child.getDescendantCount();
        }
        return count;
    }
}