Provide an iterator over the contents of two lists simultaneously?

Question

Suppose I have this:

public class Unit {

    ...

    List mobileSuits;
    List pilots;

    ...
}
         


        

Answer 1

Also, I can't make a new class to combine MobileSuit and Pilot.

That doesn't sound correct. It sounds like you can't replace MobileSuit and Pilot by a single class, but I don't see any reason why you can't have a single class that combines them - i.e. one which just has a getPilot() method and a getMobileSuit() method. You could use a generic Pair class for the same purpose, but a custom class would be easier to use.

On the other hand, if you want to do this sort of "zipping" operation in multiple places, it might be one solution. Alternatively, you could write a generic interface to represent the act of combining the two distinct items - which could return a SuitedPilot or whatever your combination class is.