Tree.hasChildren (with null safe refactor)

[jpcaruana]

this method is very handy if you want to iterate over all the tree

[jkee]

Thanks for pull request.
Why you can't just iterate through the tree using foreach?

[jpcaruana]

Hi,

if you want to loop ever children, you first have to null check it: that's one unnecessary null check, one indent level more, less readability.

• looping over en empty list removes all this clutter
• having a hasChildren method is more explicit that checking nullity or emptiness, improving overall readability and hidding implementation details`

Or maybe I missed a way to do it already ?

[jkee]

You can use treeIterator(). It'll handle nulls by itself.
I know that its usage is not so handy (no foreach) but it can be easily solved by returning Iterable (something like "asIterable" or just "flatten" method).

But if you want to loop children for only current node then it'll be better to have something like "getChildrenValues" which will return Collections.emptyList in null case.

I mean, there are two kind of operations - working with tree as a structure and working with tree as a container (accessing and editing elements). Unfortunately I wasn't be able to separate it in some clear way.