Java Arrays & Generics : Java Equivalent to C# IEnumerable

Question

So in C#, I can treat a string[] as an IEnumerable<string>.

Is there a Java equivalent?

Answer 1

Iterable<String> is the equivalent of IEnumerable<string>.

It would be an odditity in the type system if arrays implemented Iterable. String[] is an instance of Object[], but Iterable<String> is not an Iterable<Object>. Classes and interfaces cannot multiply implement the same generic interface with different generic arguments.

String[] will work just like an Iterable in the enhanced for loop.

String[] can easily be turned into an Iterable:

Iterable<String> strs = java.util.Arrays.asList(strArray);

Prefer collections over arrays (for non-primitives anyway). Arrays of reference types are a bit odd, and are rarely needed since Java 1.5.

Answer 2

Are you looking for Iterable<String>?

Iterable<T> <=> IEnumerable<T>
Iterator<T> <=> IEnumerator<T>

Answer 3

Iterable <T>

Answer 4

I believe the Java equivalent is Iterable<String>. Although String[] doesn't implement it, you can loop over the elements anyway:

String[] strings = new String[]{"this", "that"};
for (String s : strings) {
    // do something
}

If you really need something that implements Iterable<String>, you can do this:

String[] strings = new String[]{"this", "that"};
Iterable<String> stringIterable = Arrays.asList(strings);

Answer 5

Iterable<T> is OK, but there is a small problem. It cannot be used easily in stream() i.e lambda expressions.

If you want so, you should get it's spliterator, and use the class StreamSupport().