Re: returning a pair of iterator.

From:
"toton" <abirbasak@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
4 Oct 2006 23:51:19 -0700
Message-ID:
<1160031079.409995.321610@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>
Thomas Weidenfeller wrote:

toton wrote:

 I get paid for C++


My condolences :-)

That says that the list can not be
modified. However I want the list element should not be able to
modified Just like const_iterator in C++.


You won't get a const_itertator. Java is not C++.

I know. One has four letters other has one letter plus two symbol!

a) You will hopefully soon find out that it is typically a waste of time
trying to protect objects from getting modified. If you have designed
your objects in the right way (they manage to keep themselves
consistent), it should be perfectly ok to modify an object. Totally
independent of who does it. If you don't trust someone with your
objects, don't give them the objects at all. If you trust them, let them
do whatever they want.

The world is not binary. I can trust someone, but that does not mean I
need to trust every one. You should check the book by Joshua Bloch and
how it created problem when a non mutable class like Dimension is
returned from every Java Swing component. None of the resizing event
will get fired if one modifies the returning dimension. So one had to
make a defensive copy! And that is a pretty simple example (where it
stores only two int , and some equivalent like getWidth() can be
prescribed) . Think of a complex class and how to deal with it. Will
you make a defensive copy of everything! Thats ridiculous! apart from
being inefficient.
I found out that Java seriously lacks here. It reserves const keyword
though. What I can say only is that it is very very very baaaaad.
(Though I understand it is not just a compile time saga to add const in
the language vocabuulary, one need to put is in JVM function signature
also, but there is workaround without modifing the JVM, just like the
way Java generic has done! )

Check the beautiful article
http://david.tribble.com/text/javaconst.html

As the List returns a get
reference to object, the object always can be modified.


b) No, not always. Only objects which allow others to modify them can be
modified. If you want objects which can't be modified, add only objects
to the list which don't provide methods for modification (e.g. immutable
objects). What? Your objects provide methods for modification? Well,
then wrap them in some immutable wrapper object before you add them to
the list. Typically, however, that is a waste of time and resources.


Really waste of time and resource. Not efficient at all. This can be
termed as a fix. If I am having 20 lac objects in a list ( I really do
have ) , I can't think of it.

public class ValuableObject {
    public int getData() { ...}
    public void setData(int data) { ... }
}

public class ReallyValuableProtectedObject {
    private ValuableObject vo;

    public ReallyValuableProtectedObject(ValuableObject vo) {
        this.vo = vo;
    }
    public int getData() { return vo.getData(); }

    // do not implement setData() or implement
    // it as a no-op
}

You can decorate all this with the usage of some common interface, e.g.:

interface ReadableValuableObject {
    public int getData();
}

public class ValuableObject implements ReadableValuableObject { ... }
public class ReallyValuableProtectedObject implements
ReadableValuableObject { ... }

And when you have done that a few hundred times you might recognize that
you are wasting your time.

/Thomas
--

<quote>
As Chris Uppal says, you're on a loser if you're wanting stl-like
functionality from Java.
</quote>
No, I am not. A programmer always want to use best of all language, and
simply ignore all other way.

The comp.lang.java.gui FAQ:
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/faqs/faqs-hierarchy/comp/comp.lang.java.gui/
ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/computer-lang/java/gui/faq

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