Next we’ll get more practice working with interfaces.
We’ll move past our friend Comparable
and look at two new Java interfaces that allow us to integrate with a built-in language feature—the enhanced for
loop.
Super cool!
Let’s go…
Iterable
and Iterator
Iterable
and Iterator
Now let’s have more fun with interfaces.
Remember the enhanced Java for
loop:
So it turns out that we can implement our own classes that can be used in the enhanced for
loop.
Pretty cool!
Let’s look at the interfaces that are required and consider how they work.
We’ll examine them both at once, since they are really designed to work together:
Now let’s put what we know to use to build a simple random number generator.
We’ll create a class that can be used on the right side of a for
loop and generates a certain number of random int
values.
Next, let’s look at a few improvements to our iterable random number generator based on what we’ve already done.
Create a public class named MyString
.
MyString
should provide a public constructor that accepts a single String
argument.
You should reject null
String
s in your constructor using assert
.
MyString
should also implement the Java Comparable<MyString>
interface, returning 1 for a positive result and -1
for a negative result.
Normally String
s are compared lexicographically: "aaa" comes before "z".
MyString
should compare instances based on the length of its stored String
.
So MyString("aaa")
should come after MyString("z")
, since "aaa" is longer than "z".
You will probably need to review the documentation for Comparable
.
Because we are using the type parameter MyString
to the Comparable
interface, compareTo
accepts an
MyString
as an argument.
The MyString
passed to compareTo
will not be null
.
Create a class named BothGreater
that stores two int
values set by the constructor.
Neither should be publicly visible.
BothGreater
should also implement the Java Comparable<BothGreater>
interface, returning 1 for a positive result
and -1 for a negative result.
An instance of BothGreater
is greater than a second instance if both int
values are larger, and is lesser
than if both int
values are smaller.
Otherwise compareTo
should return 0.
The instance passed to compareTo
will not be null
.
You will probably need to review the documentation for Comparable
.
Because we are using the type parameter BothGreater
to the Comparable
interface, compareTo
accepts an
BothGreater
as an argument.
Need more practice? Head over to the practice page.