Removing items from a collection in java while iterating over it

Question

I want to be able to remove multiple elements from a set while I am iterating over it. Initially I hoped that iterators were smart enough for the naive solution below to wor

Answer 1

Normally when you remove an element from a collection while looping over the collection, you'll get a Concurrent Modification Exception. This is partially why the Iterator interface has a remove() method. Using an iterator is the only safe way to modify a collection of elements while traversing them.

The code would go something like this:

Set set = new HashSet();
fillSet(set);
Iterator setIterator = set.iterator();
while (setIterator.hasNext()) {
    SomeClass currentElement = setIterator.next();
    if (setOfElementsToRemove(currentElement).size() > 0) {
        setIterator.remove();
    }
}

This way you'll safely remove all elements that generate a removal set from your setOfElementsToRemove().

EDIT

Based on a comment to another answer, this may be more what you want:

Set set = new HashSet();
Set removalSet = new HashSet();
fillSet(set);

for (SomeClass currentElement : set) {
    removalSet.addAll(setOfElementsToRemove(currentElement);
}

set.removeAll(removalSet);