Thread: Trouble with while loop and the use of the Iteration class.

I am having a hard time with using the Iteration class. I don't know how to effectively use the "next()" method, it confuses me. When I search for the last product in the list nothing prints out because at that time it is looking at the next item in the list. Do I use a variable that I subtract 1 from? Here is my code, any help would be awesome.

  public Product findProduct(int id)
    {
        Iterator<Product> p = stock.iterator();
        boolean looking = true;
        while(looking && p.hasNext())        {
            int searchID = p.next().getID();
            if (p.hasNext() && id == searchID)
                {
                    Product foundProduct = p.next();
                    looking = false;
                    return foundProduct;
                }
        }
        return null;
    }

The searchID holds the the ID field instance in the Product class. It retrieves it through getID method located in the Products class. The ID == searchId is to test and see if the parameter passed ID matches something in stock(via an arraylist, stock).

The findProduct() is supposed to find the parameter ID variable and see if that ID is in stock. If yes it returns Product info, if not it returns null.

Thanks for the quick response. If my iterator is always looking for the next what purpose does it have when looking for something at the end of a list?

yes I was hoping to return the record with id=2. I redid the method just using a variable instead of an Iterator object.

public Product findProduct(int id)
    {
        int index = 0;
        boolean looking = true;
        Product details = stock.get(index);
        while(looking && index <= stock.size())
        {
            int detailNum = details.getID();
            if (detailNum == id)
            {
                looking = false;
                return details;  
            }
            index++;
        }
        return null;
    }

I was hoping to do away with the index variable because I don't like having a variable synced with an ArrayList index. I seems unreliable. I thought Iterator was my answer but it seems that it is not good for my situation. Thanks for the help.

Oh I see what you're saying. By invoking the next method again I am using next item instead of the intended one that didn't get referenced because I am chaining when I shouldn't be.

I am learning with "Objects First with Java by David Barnes and Micael Kolling. In the book they brought up the idea of chaining with anonymous objects and mention that I should be familiar with it because I might see it in other code. I was trying to apply this concept but I see now that until I am more comfortable with programming I will not chain. I think at this stage I just need to keep it simple.