Re: Missing in Booch: range operations

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

mheaney@on2.com (Matthew Heaney) writes:

> The problem is that iterators only know about elements -- they don't
> know anything about containers.  Neither Charles nor the STL attempts
> to detect this error.

Matt, you say this as though it were a law of nature! There is nothing
in the notion of iterator that prevents them knowing about the
container. Indeed (being pedantic) the very name iterator indicates
that there is a container involved (otherwise, what would you be
iterating over?)

dictionary.com says:

   iterator

   <programming> An object or routine for accessing items from a list,
   array or stream one at a time.

   By extension, the term can be used for an object or routine for
   accesing items from any data structure that can be viewed as a
   list. For example, a traverser is an iterator for tree-shaped data
   structures.