Queue not ordering naturally [duplicate]

Answer 1

PriorityQueue is based on a priority heap. This data structure allows to retrieve the least element very quickly though the elements are not sorted. Adding elements to PriorityQueue is faster than to TreeSet which is tree based. Since the elements are not sorted, the iterator, as API says, "does not return the elements in any particular order".

Answer 2

According to the javadoc for the iterator:

The iterator does not return the elements in any particular order.

However, the first item (head) is guaranteed to be the smallest. So this should print what you expect:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Queue<String> q = new PriorityQueue<String>();
    q.offer("car");
    q.offer("airplane");
    q.offer("bicycle");
    String e = null;
    while ((e = q.poll()) != null) {
        System.out.println(e);
    }
}

If you want iteration to be sorted, you need to use a different structure, for example a TreeSet if you don't have duplicates.