Is there a Java equivalent to C#'s 'yield' keyword?

Question

I know there is no direct equivalent in Java itself, but perhaps a third party?

It is really convenient. Currently I'd like to implement an iterator that yields all nodes in a tree, which is about five lines of code with yield.

Answer 1

The two options I know of is Aviad Ben Dov's infomancers-collections library from 2007 and Jim Blackler's YieldAdapter library from 2008 (which is also mentioned in the other answer).

Both will allow you to write code with yield return-like construct in Java, so both will satisfy your request. The notable differences between the two are:

Mechanics

Aviad's library is using bytecode manipulation while Jim's uses multithreading. Depending on your needs, each may have its own advantages and disadvantages. It's likely Aviad's solution is faster, while Jim's is more portable (for example, I don't think Aviad's library will work on Android).

Interface

Aviad's library has a cleaner interface - here's an example:

Iterable<Integer> it = new Yielder<Integer>() {
    @Override protected void yieldNextCore() {
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            yieldReturn(i);
            if (i == 5) yieldBreak();
        }
    }
};

While Jim's is way more complicated, requiring you to adept a generic Collector which has a collect(ResultHandler) method... ugh. However, you could use something like this wrapper around Jim's code by Zoom Information which greatly simplifies that:

Iterable<Integer> it = new Generator<Integer>() {
    @Override protected void run() {
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            yield(i);
            if (i == 5) return;
        }
    }
};

License

Aviad's solution is BSD.

Jim's solution is public domain, and so is its wrapper mentioned above.