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

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);
}