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Collections beginner

Reverse list iteration

Iterate over a list in reverse order with a clean for-each loop.

Code Comparison
✕ Java 8 
for (ListIterator<String> it =
        list.listIterator(list.size());
    it.hasPrevious(); ) {
    String element = it.previous();
    System.out.println(element);
}
✓ Java 21+ 
for (String element : list.reversed()) {
    System.out.println(element);
}
Why the modern way wins
📖

Natural syntax

Enhanced for loop instead of verbose ListIterator.

⚡

No copying

reversed() returns a view — no performance overhead.

🧩

Consistent API

Works on List, Deque, SortedSet uniformly.

Old Approach
Manual ListIterator
Modern Approach
reversed()
Since JDK
21
Difficulty
beginner
JDK Support
Reverse list iteration
Available

Widely available since JDK 21 LTS (Sept 2023)

How it works

The reversed() method from SequencedCollection returns a reverse-ordered view of the list. This view is backed by the original list, so no copying occurs. The enhanced for loop syntax makes reverse iteration as readable as forward iteration.

Related Documentation
Related patterns
Collections beginner

Sequenced collections

Java 8
// Get last element
var last = list.get(list.size() - 1);
// Get first
var first = list.get(0);
// Reverse iteration: manual
Java 21+
var last = list.getLast();
var first = list.getFirst();
var reversed = list.reversed();
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 21+ →
Collections beginner

Immutable list creation

Java 8
List<String> list =
    Collections.unmodifiableList(
        new ArrayList<>(
            Arrays.asList("a", "b", "c")
        )
    );
Java 9+
List<String> list =
    List.of("a", "b", "c");
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 9+ →
Streams beginner

Stream.toList()

Java 8
List<String> result = stream
    .filter(s -> s.length() > 3)
    .collect(Collectors.toList());
Java 16+
List<String> result = stream
    .filter(s -> s.length() > 3)
    .toList();
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 16+ →
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