Editing Iterator pattern (section)

{{Short description|Software design pattern}}
In [[object-oriented programming]], the '''iterator pattern''' is a [[design pattern (computer science)|design pattern]] in which an [[iterator]] is used to traverse a [[Collection (abstract data type)|container]] and access the container's elements. The iterator pattern decouples [[algorithm]]s from containers; in some cases, algorithms are necessarily container-specific and thus cannot be decoupled.

For example, the hypothetical algorithm ''SearchForElement'' can be implemented generally using a specified type of iterator rather than implementing it as a container-specific algorithm. This allows ''SearchForElement'' to be used on any container that supports the required type of iterator.
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