Has anybody considered a chain iterator?
i.e. For some chain, I'd like to be able to traverse each of its commands from first to last (in the usual manner, whereby the chain supplies a java.util.Iterator that returns each of its commands in turn).
Why do you need to do this yourself? The point of the Chain is to execute the relevant Commands for you.
I'm not sure if it's a sufficiently common use to support adding a method toNothing like this should be added to the Chain interface itself -- that would be exposing internal details that should be of no interest to external parties. The Chain, like any Command, should be viewed (from the outside) as a black box.
the actual Chain interface... but at least add it to ChainBase?
In addition, it would be redundant to add this to ChainBase because it is trivially simple to add in your own subclass of ChainBase (since the commands array is protected, not private). As the name "Base" implies, this class is designed to be the *base* class for your own custom Chain implementations, not necessarily the standard implementation that everyone uses (although I haven't needed anything fancier in my work with commons-chain so far).
If people have any suggestions as to which way to head I'll try and draft a patch for it.
IMHO, the only code that should have access to the list of Commands in a Chain is the Chain implementation itself, or the unit tests for the Chain implementation (which is why the package private getCommands() method exists). I would consider any other code that wants to mess around with the internals of the chain as a potential danger signal that you're not respecting the abstractions of the Chain of Responsibility pattern.
matthew
Craig
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