Expose sequential consumption through availability and next-element operations while hiding storage and traversal details. The abstraction supports common clients for arrays, linked structures or generated sequences. A separate iterator can own separate cursor state; an alias of the same iterator does not create an independent traversal.
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The Iterator Pattern is a design pattern that provides a way to access the elements of a collection (like arrays, lists, or trees) sequentially without exposing the underlying representation of the collection. It is part of the behavioral design patterns category in software engineering. ### Key Components of the Iterator Pattern 1. **Iterator**: This is an interface that defines methods for traversing the collection. Common methods include: - `next()`: Returns the next element in the iteration.