CollationElementIterator previous() method in Java with Examples

The previous() method of java.text.CollationElementIterator class is used to get previous Collator element. This method push the iterator to the previous element and returns its value.

Syntax:

public int previous()

Parameter: This method does accepts any parameter.

Return Value: This method returns the value of the previous collator element.

Below are the examples to illustrate the previous() method:

Example 1:

// Java program to demonstrate previous() method

import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

public class GFG {
    public static void main(String[] argv)
    {
        // creating and initializing testString
        String test = "abcd";

        // creating and initializing
        // RuleBasedCollator object
        RuleBasedCollator rbc
            = (RuleBasedCollator)(Collator.getInstance());

        // creating and initializing
        // CollationElementIterator
        CollationElementIterator cel
            = rbc.getCollationElementIterator(test);

        // setting offset to index 4
        cel.setOffset(3);

        // display the result
        System.out.println("current offset before"
                           + " calling previous() "
                           + cel.getOffset());

        // getting offset of the previous collator element
        // using previous() method
        int value = cel.previous();

        // display the result
        System.out.println("\ncurrent element value after"
                           + " calling previous() "
                           + value);
    }
}

Output:

current offset before calling previous() 3

current element value after calling previous() 5505024

Example 2:

// Java program to demonstrate previous() method

import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

public class GFG {
    public static void main(String[] argv)
    {
        // creating and initializing testString
        String test = "abcd";

        // creating and initializing
        // RuleBasedCollator object
        RuleBasedCollator rbc
            = (RuleBasedCollator)(Collator.getInstance());

        // creating and initializing
        // CollationElementIterator
        CollationElementIterator cel
            = rbc.getCollationElementIterator(test);

        // setting offset to index 2
        cel.setOffset(2);

        // display the result
        System.out.println("current offset before"
                           + " calling previous() "
                           + cel.getOffset());

        // getting offset of the previous collator element
        // using previous() method
        int value = cel.previous();

        // display the result
        System.out.println("\ncurrent offset after"
                           + " calling previous() "
                           + cel.getOffset());
    }
}

Output:

current offset before calling previous() 2

current offset after calling previous() 1

Reference: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/docs/api/java/text/CollationElementIterator.html#next–