Can one do a for each loop in java in reverse orde

Question

I need to run through a List in reverse order using Java.

So where this does it forwards:

for(String string: stringList){
//...do something
}

Is there some way to iterate the stringList in reverse order using the for each syntax?

For clarity: I know how to iterate a list in reverse order but would like to know (for curiosity's sake ) how to do it in the for each style.

Answer 1

This may be an option. Hope there is a better way to start from last element than to while loop to the end.

public static void main(String[] args) {        
    List<String> a = new ArrayList<String>();
    a.add("1");a.add("2");a.add("3");a.add("4");a.add("5");

    ListIterator<String> aIter=a.listIterator();        
    while(aIter.hasNext()) aIter.next();

    for (;aIter.hasPrevious();)
    {
        String aVal = aIter.previous();
        System.out.println(aVal);           
    }
}

Answer 2

Not without writing some custom code which will give you an enumerator which will reverse the elements for you.

You should be able to do it in Java by creating a custom implementation of Iterable which will return the elements in reverse order.

Then, you would instantiate the wrapper (or call the method, what-have-you) which would return the Iterable implementation which reverses the element in the for each loop.

Answer 3

As of the comment: You should be able to use Apache Commons ReverseListIterator

Iterable<String> reverse 
    = new IteratorIterable(new ReverseListIterator(stringList));

for(String string: reverse ){
    //...do something
}

As @rogerdpack said, you need to wrap the ReverseListIterator as an Iterable.

Answer 4

A work Around :

Collections.reverse(stringList).forEach(str -> ...);

Or with guava :

Lists.reverse(stringList).forEach(str -> ...);

Answer 5

AFAIK there isn't a standard "reverse_iterator" sort of thing in the standard library that supports the for-each syntax which is already a syntactic sugar they brought late into the language.

You could do something like for(Item element: myList.clone().reverse()) and pay the associated price.

This also seems fairly consistent with the apparent phenomenon of not giving you convenient ways to do expensive operations - since a list, by definition, could have O(N) random access complexity (you could implement the interface with a single-link), reverse iteration could end up being O(N^2). Of course, if you have an ArrayList, you don't pay that price.

Answer 6

The Collections.reverse method actually returns a new list with the elements of the original list copied into it in reverse order, so this has O(n) performance with regards to the size of the original list.

As a more efficient solution, you could write a decorator that presents a reversed view of a List as an Iterable. The iterator returned by your decorator would use the ListIterator of the decorated list to walk over the elements in reverse order.

For example:

public class Reversed<T> implements Iterable<T> {
    private final List<T> original;

    public Reversed(List<T> original) {
        this.original = original;
    }

    public Iterator<T> iterator() {
        final ListIterator<T> i = original.listIterator(original.size());

        return new Iterator<T>() {
            public boolean hasNext() { return i.hasPrevious(); }
            public T next() { return i.previous(); }
            public void remove() { i.remove(); }
        };
    }

    public static <T> Reversed<T> reversed(List<T> original) {
        return new Reversed<T>(original);
    }
}

And you would use it like:

import static Reversed.reversed;

...

List<String> someStrings = getSomeStrings();
for (String s : reversed(someStrings)) {
    doSomethingWith(s);
}