Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2019 / Imperative programming / 6 / c / Solution

The plus marks a covariant type parameter: if $S<:T$, then Iterator[S] <: Iterator[T]. An iterator producing a subtype's values can be used where an iterator of the supertype is required. For example, a string iterator can be viewed as an iterator of AnyRef, because strings are reference values. The direction is appropriate for a producer: calling next() gives a value valid at the wider type. It would not be safe to expose an ordinary insertion method accepting arbitrary wider-type values into a subtype-only collection. This is a subtyping relationship, not a request to transform each produced value.^[ref]