I am learning programming and new to this domain as i am have a mechanical background.
Yesterday I received a problem statement from prof. where he provided us an custom Iterator which is designed to iterate over given elements alternatively.
Alternate Iterator code is as following.
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.Queue;
public class AlternatingIterator<E> implements Iterator{
private final Queue<E> queue = new LinkedList<>();
public AlternatingIterator(Iterator<E> ... iterators) {
for(Iterator<E> iterator : iterators) {
while(iterator.hasNext())
queue.add(iterator.next());
}
}
#Override
public boolean hasNext() {
return queue.isEmpty() ? false : true;
}
#Override
public Object next() {
return queue.poll();
}
}
Now, The AlternatingIterator should alternate in order between the iterators it receives in its constructor. For example if constructed with three iterators [a,b,c], [1,2] and [x,y,z], the iterator should produce the elements in this order ‘a, 1, x, b, 2, y, c, z’
Also i have to Write unit tests for the ‘hasNext’ and ‘next’ methods.
Can we implement any other data structure than queue?
I am completely blown off and tired to understand how to solve this challenge but very confused here. If you guys can help me then i can learn important concept very quickly.
Thank you in advance and any help is appreciated.
Of course, we can use anything we can imagine. The following implementation alternates dynamically. Instead of using a queue, I store all the received iterators in an array:
import java.util.Iterator;
/**Alternates on the given iterators.*/
public class AlternatingIterator<E> implements Iterator {
/**Stores the iterators which are to be alternated on.*/
private Iterator<E>[] iterators;
/**The index of iterator, which has the next element.*/
private int nextIterator = 0;
/**Initializes a new AlternatingIterator object.
* Stores the iterators in the iterators field.
* Finds the first iterator with an available element.*/
public AlternatingIterator(Iterator<E> ... iterators) {
this.iterators = iterators;
if (!iterators[0].hasNext())
findNextIterator();
}
#Override
public boolean hasNext() {
return iterators[nextIterator].hasNext();
}
#Override
public Object next() {
E element = iterators[nextIterator].next();
findNextIterator();
return element;
}
/**Steps on iterators, until one has next element.
* It does not step on them infinitely, stops when
* the lastly used iterator is reached.*/
private void findNextIterator() {
int currentIterator = nextIterator;
// Finding iterator with element remaining.
do {
stepNextIterator();
} while (!iterators[nextIterator].hasNext() && nextIterator != currentIterator);
// If it gets around to the same iterator, then there is no iterator with element.
}
/**Increases the nextIterator value without indexing out of bounds.*/
private void stepNextIterator() {
nextIterator = (nextIterator + 1) % iterators.length;
}
}
But the same could be made statically using a queue, enqueuing all the elements from the iterators, having only that one queue as in your (your prof's) code.
#Andy Turner: Collecting the elements from the iterator results in not relying on the source collection the entire time until the last element is not obtained. Sure, from Java8 we use Streams, which won't gift us concurrent exceptions, but before Java8, buffering an/more iterator into a collection could have been safer in my opinion.
EDIT: you wrote then we can use the iterator of that given collection. Yeah, I totally forgot that, implementing an iterator for a simple queue is for sure pointless :)
A queue is helpful here, but not in the way you are using it.
There is no real point in copying all the elements from the iterators provided to the constructor into a queue, and then implementing a custom iterator from this queue: if you are going to put the elements into a collection which already implements Iterable, you may as well just use that Iterable's iterator.
But this is also probably not the point of the exercise: you can do this lazily with respect to consuming the input iterators. (Besides, what if one of the iterators is infinite...)
The idea I would suggest is to make a queue of iterators, not elements. Here is a description of how you could do it; I don't want to give you code to spoil your learning experience:
In your constructor, put the iterators from the parameter into a queue.
To implement hasNext(), pop iterators off the head of the queue for which hasNext() is false; stop when the iterator at the head of the queue has a next element (in which case return true), or the queue is empty (in which case return false).
To implement next(), pop the head iterator out of the queue, and get its next element: this is what you will return. But, before you do, if the iterator has more elements, push it onto the tail of the queue (doing this means that you will look at the next iterator on the next iteration).
Related
In the Head First Design Patterns book, the authors describe using an iterator to traverse over composite data structures. They provide some sample code which, when executed, prints out a series of menu items stored within the composite. However, if you try to call the iterator more than once, it no longer works as expected and won't produce any results. The following code appears to be causing the problem:
public Iterator<MenuComponent> createIterator() {
if (iterator == null) {
iterator = new CompositeIterator(menuComponents.iterator());
}
return iterator;
}
In essence, they are creating a singleton iterator that cannot be reset for future iterations. Unfortunately, simply replacing this logic to return a new instance of the CompositeIterator also breaks the algorithm. An issue was raised on GitHub several years ago, although is yet to be resolved. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to overcome this issue?
As the linked issue says in the comments:
return iterator; // the `iterator' never resets to null once it's set.
We need to reset the iterator we are done with it, but not when the iterator still has elements left, because CompositeIterator depends on that.
One way to do this is to add another condition on which iterator is reset - when the iterator has no more elements:
public Iterator<MenuComponent> createIterator() {
if (iterator == null || !iterator.hasNext()) {
iterator = new CompositeIterator(menuComponents.iterator());
}
return iterator;
}
Consider the following code snippet:
private List<Listener<E>> listenerList = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<Listener<E>>();
public void addListener(Listener<E> listener) {
if (listener != null) {
listenerList.add(listener);
}
}
public void removeListener(Listener<E> listener) {
if (listener != null) {
listenerList.remove(listener);
}
}
protected final void fireChangedForward(Event<E> event) {
for (Listener<E> listener : listenerList) {
listener.changed(event);
}
}
protected final void fireChangedReversed(Event<E> event) {
final ListIterator<Listener<E>> li = listenerList.listIterator(listenerList.size());
while (li.hasPrevious()) {
li.previous().changed(event);
}
}
There is a listener list that can be modified and iterated.
I think the forward iteration (see method #fireChangedForward)
should be safe.
The question is: is the reverse iteration (see method #fireChangedReversed) also safe in a multi-threaded environment?
I doubt that, because there are two calls involved: #size and #listIterator.
If it's not thread-safe, what is the most efficient way to implement #fireChangedReversed under the following circumstances:
optimize for traversal
avoid usage of locking if possible
avoid usage of javax.swing.event.EventListenerList
prefer solution without usage of third-party lib, e.g. implementation in own code possible
Indeed, listenerList.listIterator(listenerList.size()) is not thread-safe, for exactly the reason you suggested: the list could change size between the calls to size() and listIterator(), resulting in either the omission of an element from the iteration, or IndexOutOfBoundsException being thrown.
The best way to deal with this is to clone the CopyOnWriteArrayList before getting the iterator:
CopyOnWriteArrayList<Listener<E>> listenerList = ... ;
#SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
List<Listener<E>> copy = (List<Listener<E>>)listenerList.clone();
ListIterator<Listener<E>> li = copy.listIterator(copy.size());
The clone makes a shallow copy of the list. In particular, the clone shares the internal array with the original. This isn't entirely obvious from the specification, which says merely
Returns a shallow copy of this list. (The elements themselves are not copied.)
(When I read this, I thought "Of course the elements aren't copied; this is a shallow copy!" What this really means is that neither the elements nor the array that contains them are copied.)
This is fairly inconvenient, including the lack of a covariant override of clone(), requiring an unchecked cast.
Some potential enhancements are discussed in JDK-6821196 and JDK-8149509. The former bug also links to a discussion of this issue on the concurrency-interest mailing list.
One simple way to do that is to call #toArray method and iterate over the array in reverse order.
You could always just get a ListIterator and "fast-forward" to the end of the list as such:
final ListIterator<Listener<E>> li = listenerList.listIterator();
if (li.hasNext()) {
do{
li.next();
} while (li.hasNext());
}
while (li.hasPrevious()) {
li.previous().changed(event);
}
EDIT I switched the quirky exception-handling of my previous answer for a do/while loop that places the cursor of the ListIterator after the last element, in order to be ready for the next previous call.
RE-EDIT As pointed out by #MikeFHay, a do/while loop on an iterator will throw a NoSuchElementException on an empty list. To prevent this from happening, I wrapped the do/while loop with if (li.hasNext()).
Is there an alternative way to get the max element in a Queue (Java)?
(Please provide alternative approaches )
import java.util.*;
public class MaxQueueElement<E extends Comparable<E>> {
public MaxQueueElement(Queue<E> queue){
E max= queue.peek(); // initialize max with head of queue
for(E e : queue){
if(e.compareTo(max) > 0){
max = e;
}
}
System.out.println(max);
}
}
The get-max operation on a queue can be implemented in amortized O(1) time by maintaining the candidates for the max value in a separate double-ended queue (Deque).
On enqueue (or offer) operation, we check whether there are any elements at the back of the Deque which are lesser in value than the element being enqueued. These values can simply be removed – for these can never be the maximum value going forward.
On dequeue (or poll) operation, we check whether the first element in the Deque is equal to the first element in the regular queue and if yes, remove it too.
The max element is simply the first element of the Deque.
All operations have amortized O(1) time complexity.
Here's an implementation in Java:
public class QueueWithMax<T extends Comparable<T>> {
Queue<T> queue;
Deque<T> cMax; // candidates for Max value
public QueueWithMax() {
queue = new LinkedList<>();
cMax = new LinkedList<>();
}
public void offer(T element) {
queue.offer(element);
while (!cMax.isEmpty() && element.compareTo(cMax.peekLast()) > 0) {
cMax.pollLast();
}
cMax.offerLast(element);
}
public T poll() {
if (cMax.peekFirst().equals(queue.peek()))
cMax.pollFirst();
return queue.poll();
}
public T getMax() {
return cMax.peekFirst();
}
}
The only way to access all elements in a Queue is to use the iterator() method - you can't (generally) access the elements by index (as in, some implementations might, but Queue doesn't inherently).
As such, all you can do is to iterate the elements one at a time, storing the current maximum element. This is exactly what you're doing here.
There is nothing wrong with your algorithm - but the way you've implemented it could be improved:
Don't do this in the constructor of a class - you don't need to construct a new instance of anything, as the maximum value already exists. Do it in a (static) method.
Don't print out the result - that's of no use to man or beast. Return it to the caller.
Handle the cases where the queue is empty and may contain nulls. (Look at the Javadoc of Collections.max for ideas)
I'm taking a computer science class, and we aren't allowed to use the for each loop. I'm not sure if it's the same with you. Note that the for each loop kind of defeats the purpose of a Queue since you want to only be handling the front and end of a queue. In my class specifically, we also want to have the queue be at it's original state before it was passed into the method without using an extra auxiliary data structure. Here's how I would go about it on a test:
public E findMaxQueueElement(Queue<e> queue) { //my test would ask me to return the max value
E max = queue.remove();
queue.add(max); //add it back to the end
for(int i=0; i<queue.size()-1; i++) {
E current = queue.remove();
if (current.compareTo(max) > 0) {
max = current;
}
queue.add(current);
}
return max;
}
With the limitations I provided, this should work. I hope this helps.
You can use Java 8's stream to sort the Queue, it internally uses the same algorithm but will result in less noisy code, e.g.:
public void MaxQueueElement(Queue<E> queue){
Optional<E> max = queue.stream()
.max(Comparable::compareTo);
if(max.isPresent()){
System.out.println(max.get());
}
}
Another approach would be to use PriorityQueue with comparator and get the first element from it. e.g.:
public void MaxQueueElement2(Queue<E> queue){
PriorityQueue<E> pQueue = new PriorityQueue<>((E e1, E e2)->e1.compareTo(e2));
pQueue.addAll(queue);
System.out.println(pQueue.peek());
}
Unless the queue is not some special sorted queue like PriorityQueue, from the algorithmic point of view there is no better way. Since the queue does not have any intrinsic sorting properties, you have to check all the elements of the queue before you find one.
The code is more or less OK. It will fail if the queue contains null. This is normally not the case, but may happen.
The MaxQueueElement construct is somewhat strange.
I think you can also make use of
Collections.max(queue) in case of queue
I have the following scenario: I have an existing iterator Iterator<String> it and I iterate over its head (say first k elements, which are flagged elements, i.e. they start with '*' ). The only way to know that the flagged elements are over, is by noticing that the (k+1)th element is not flagged.
The problem is that if I do that, the iterator it will not provide me the first value anymore on the next call to next().
I want to pass this iterator to a method as it's only argument and I would like to avoid changing its signarture and it implementation. I know I could do this:
public void methodAcceptingIterator(Iterator<String> it) //current signature
//change it to
public void methodAcceptingIterator(String firstElement, Iterator<String> it)
But this looks like a workarround/hack decreasing the elegance and generality of the code, so I don't want to this.
Any ideas how I could solve this problem ?
You could use Guava's PeekingIterator (link contains the javadoc for a static method which, given an Iterator, will return a wrapping PeekingIterator). That includes a method T peek() which shows you the next element without advancing to it.
The solution is to create your own Iterator implementation which stores the firstElement and uses the existing iterator as an underlying Iterator to delegate the requests for the rest of the elements to.
Something like:
public class IteratorMissingFirst<E> implements Iterator<E>{
private Iterator<E> underlyingIterator;
private E firstElement;
private boolean firstElOffered;
public IteratorMissingFirst(E firstElement, Iterator<E> it){
//initialize all the instance vars
}
public boolean hasNext(){
if(!firstElOffered && firstElement != null){
return true;
}
else{
return underlyingIterator.hasNext();
}
}
public E next(){
if(!firstElOffered){
firstElOffered = true;
return firstElement;
}
else return underlyingIterator.next();
}
public void remove(){
}
}
Why don't you just have methodAcceptingIterator store the first element it gets out of the iterator in a variable? Or -- in a pinch -- just copy the contents of the Iterator into an ArrayList at the beginning of your method; now you can revisit elements as often as you like.
With Guava, you can implement Razvan's solution in an easier way by using some methods from the Iterables class:
Iterators.concat(Iterators.singletonIterator(firstElement), it)
This gives you an iterator working similar to IteratorMissingFirst, and it's easy to extend if you need to look at more than one element in front (but it creates two objects instead of only one).
I need to update some fixed-priority elements in a PriorityQueue based on their ID. I think it's quite a common scenario, here's an example snippet (Android 2.2):
for (Entry e : mEntries) {
if (e.getId().equals(someId)) {
e.setData(newData);
}
}
I've then made Entry "immutable" (no setter methods) so that a new Entry instance is created and returned by setData(). I modified my method into this:
for (Entry e : mEntries) {
if (e.getId().equals(someId)) {
Entry newEntry = e.setData(newData);
mEntries.remove(e);
mEntries.add(newEntry);
}
}
The code seems to work fine, but someone pointed out that modifying a queue while iterating over it is a bad idea: it may throw a ConcurrentModificationException and I'd need to add the elements I want to remove to an ArrayList and remove it later. He didn't explain why, and it looks quite an overhead to me, but I couldn't find any specific explanation on internet.
(This post is similar, but there priorities can change, which is not my case)
Can anyone clarify what's wrong with my code, how should I change it and - most of all - why?
Thanks,
Rippel
PS: Some implementation details...
PriorityQueue<Entry> mEntries = new PriorityQueue<Entry>(1, Entry.EntryComparator());
with:
public static class EntryComparator implements Comparator<Entry> {
public int compare(Entry my, Entry their) {
if (my.mPriority < their.mPriority) {
return 1;
}
else if (my.mPriority > their.mPriority) {
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
}
This code is in the Java 6 implementation of PriorityQueue:
private class Itr implements Iterator<E> {
/**
* The modCount value that the iterator believes that the backing
* Queue should have. If this expectation is violated, the iterator
* has detected concurrent modification.
*/
private int expectedModCount = modCount;
public E next() {
if(expectedModCount != modCount) {
throw new ConcurrentModificationException();
}
}
}
Now, why is this code here? If you look at the Javadoc for ConcurrentModificationException you will find that the behaviour of an iterator is undefined if modification occurs to the underlying collection before iteration completes. As such, many of the collections implement this modCount mechanism.
To fix your code
You need to ensure that you don't modify the code mid-loop. If your code is single threaded (as it appears to be) then you can simply do as your coworker suggested and copy it into a list for later inclusion. Also, the use of the Iterator.remove() method is documented to prevent ConcurrentModificationExceptions. An example:
List<Entry> toAdd = new ArrayList<Entry>();
Iterator it = mEntries.iterator();
while(it.hasNext()) {
Entry e = it.next();
if(e.getId().equals(someId)) {
Entry newEntry = e.setData(newData);
it.remove();
toAdd.add(newEntry);
}
}
mEntries.addAll(toAdd);
The Javadoc for PriorityQueue says explicitly:
"Note that this implementation is not synchronized. Multiple threads should not access a PriorityQueue instance concurrently if any of the threads modifies the list structurally. Instead, use the thread-safe PriorityBlockingQueue class."
This seems to be your case.
What's wrong in your code was already explained -- implementing iterator, which can consistently iterate through collection with intersected modification is rather hard task to do. You need to specify how to deal with removed items (will it be seen through iterator?), added items, modified items... Even if you can do it consistently it will be rather complex and unefficient implementation -- and, mostly, not very usefull, since use case "iterate without modifications" is much more common. So, java architects choose to deny modification while iterate, and most collections from Java collection API follow this, and throw ConcurrentModificationException if such modification detected.
As for your code -- for me, your just should not make items immutable. Immutability is great thing, but it should not be overused. If Entry object you use here is some kind of domain object, and you really want them to be immutable -- you can just create some kind of temporary data holder (MutableEntry) object, use it inside your algorithm, and copy data to Entry before return. From my point of view it will be best solution.
a slightly better implementation is
List<Entry> toAdd = new ArrayList<Entry>();
for (Iterator<Entry> it= mEntries.iterator();it.hasNext();) {
Entry e = it.next();
if (e.getId().equals(someId)) {
Entry newEntry = e.setData(newData);
it.remove();
toAdd.add(newEntry);
}
}
mEntries.addAll(toAdd);
this uses the remove of the iterator and a bulk add afterwards