Is it possible to merge iterators in Java?

Question

Is it possible to merge iterators in Java? I have two iterators and I want to combine/merge them so that I could iterate though their elements in one go (in same loop) rathe

Answer 1

Also the Apache Commons Collection have several classes for manipulating Iterators, like the IteratorChain, that wraps a number of Iterators.

Answer 2

You can use my version of an extendable iterator. It uses a double-ended queue of iterators which to me makes sense:

import java.util.Deque;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentLinkedDeque;

public class ExtendableIterator<T> implements Iterator<T> {

    public Deque<Iterator<T>> its = new ConcurrentLinkedDeque<Iterator<T>>();

    public ExtendableIterator() {

    }

    public ExtendableIterator(Iterator<T> it) {
        this();
        this.extend(it);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean hasNext() {
        // this is true since we never hold empty iterators
        return !its.isEmpty() && its.peekLast().hasNext();
    }

    @Override
    public T next() {
        T next = its.peekFirst().next();
        if (!its.peekFirst().hasNext()) {
            its.removeFirst();
        }
        return next;
    }

    public void extend(Iterator<T> it) {
        if (it.hasNext()) {
            its.addLast(it);
        }
    }
}