Iterator Pattern

In object-oriented programming, the iterator pattern is a design pattern in which an iterator is used to traverse a container and access the container's elements. The iterator pattern decouples algorithms from containers; in some cases, algorithms are necessarily container-specific and thus cannot be decoupled.

For example, the hypothetical algorithm SearchForElement can be implemented generally using a specified type of iterator rather than implementing it as a container-specific algorithm. This allows SearchForElement to be used on any container that supports the required type of iterator.

Wikipedia: Iterator Pattern

Example

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// NOTE: See https://api.dartlang.org/stable/2.4.0/dart-core/Iterator-class.html
// for details on Dart's Iterator class.

class RainbowIterator implements Iterator {
  var _colors = ["Red", "Orange", "Yellow", "Green", "Blue", "Indigo", "Violet"];
  var _index = 0;
  String get current => _colors[_index++];
  bool moveNext() => _index < _colors.length;
}

void main() {
  var rainbowColors = RainbowIterator();
  while(rainbowColors.moveNext()) {
    print(rainbowColors.current);
  }

  /*
    Red
    Orange
    Yellow
    Green
    Blue
    Indigo
    Violet
  */
}