What Is Iterator?

An iterator is like having your guide through a list of things. It's like having someone show you around a museum and tell you about all the exciting stuff. It works as follows: Let's say you have a list of things, like various kinds of fruit. You should review that list one item at a time and do something with each. With an iterator, you can call it up, and it will give you each item in the list one at a time, so you don't have to go through the whole list by hand. It's like getting each piece of fruit as a fruit vendor requests. It's fantastic that iterators don't do anything. No, not like your friend who never gets off the couch. They must be more active because they only make the next thing in the sequence when you ask for it. That means they are instrumental, especially if you have many items to organize. Let's talk about some technical things now. Iterators are objects that follow the iterator protocol. This means they have two methods: iter() and next (). The iter() method returns the iterator object itself, while the next() method returns the next item in the sequence. When you call the following () method, the iterator moves to the next item in the sequence and gives you that item. If no more things are in the series, it throws a StopIteration exception to let you know it's done. But here's where it gets cool: you can use iterators on all data structures, not just lists! You can use them for sets, dictionaries, files, and more. It's like having a tour guide who can show you any exhibit, not just the fruit exhibit. If you want to try something new, you can make your iterator by defining a class that follows the iterator protocol. So, you can use it to make things appear in any order you want. It's like being your tour guide and showing your friends around your private museum of cool things. An iterator is like a tour guide for your code that takes you through a set of items individually. It's very efficient because it only makes things when you ask for them, and you can use it on different data structures. You can even make your custom iterator if you want to be fancy.