posted 13 years ago
Hi,
I am wondering about safety of Iterator.remove() method. Lately I was told that since this is an "optional" operation, it is unsafe to use it if the collection on which this iterator is used is passed as a parameter of type List to a method. I understand that if user decides to create their own implementation of List, they will have to implement a bunch of methods including MyList.Iterator() and provide implementation for Iterator itself. This in turn means implementation of all basic Iterator functionality.
But I still dont see any increased danger of remove() operation. Am I missing something here? why optional operation is more dangerous then non-optional? After all user still may choose not to implement even mandatory methods and provide some dummy implementation.
Thank you!