CharacterIterator

public interface CharacterIterator
implements Cloneable

This interface defines a protocol for bidirectional iteration over text. The iterator iterates over a bounded sequence of characters. Characters are indexed with values beginning with the value returned by getBeginIndex() and continuing through the value returned by getEndIndex()-1.

Iterators maintain a current character index, whose valid range is from getBeginIndex() to getEndIndex(); the value getEndIndex() is included to allow handling of zero-length text ranges and for historical reasons. The current index can be retrieved by calling getIndex() and set directly by calling setIndex(), first(), and last().

The methods previous() and next() are used for iteration. They return DONE if they would move outside the range from getBeginIndex() to getEndIndex() -1, signaling that the iterator has reached the end of the sequence. DONE is also returned by other methods to indicate that the current index is outside this range.

Examples:

Traverse the text from start to finish

public void traverseForward(CharacterIterator iter) {
     for(char c = iter.first(); c != CharacterIterator.DONE; c = iter.next()) {
         processChar(c);
     }
 }
 

public void traverseBackward(CharacterIterator iter) {
     for(char c = iter.last(); c != CharacterIterator.DONE; c = iter.previous()) {
         processChar(c);
     }
 }
 

public void traverseOut(CharacterIterator iter, int pos) {
     for (char c = iter.setIndex(pos);
              c != CharacterIterator.DONE && notBoundary(c);
              c = iter.next()) {
     }
     int end = iter.getIndex();
     for (char c = iter.setIndex(pos);
             c != CharacterIterator.DONE && notBoundary(c);
             c = iter.previous()) {
     }
     int start = iter.getIndex();
     processSection(start, end);
 }
 

Summary

Constants

public static final char DONE

Public methods

public abstract Object clone ()

public abstract char current ()

public abstract char first ()

public abstract int getBeginIndex ()

public abstract int getEndIndex ()

public abstract int getIndex ()

public abstract char last ()

public abstract char next ()

public abstract char previous ()

public abstract char setIndex (int position)