How come Java's TreeSet has no get() method?

What would you expect a get() method on a Set to do?

• Sets are not indexed, so a get(int index) makes no sense. (Use a List if you want to get elements by index).
• get(Object obj) would also not make sense, because you'd have the object that you're trying to get already.
• There is already a contains() method to check if a Set contains an object.
• You can iterate over a Set if you want to do something with all elements in the set.

You can retrieve the elements from the treeset by using an Iterator. You can try something like this:

Iterator<Integer> it = treeSet.iterator();

Integer current = 0;
while(it.hasNext() ) {
current = it.next();

}

Hope this helps.

I do have a case where I use a two TreeSets (because they are faster in searches). One of these trees is huge, and the objects in the trees are different, so I create a mock object (of Type 2, second tree) that has the fields used to sort, using data from an object from the small tree and check if there is a counterpart on the second. Now I need to check a value from the object found in the second tree to add value on a report.

Using an iterator, instead of a binary search to retrieve the object I need, defeats the purpose of using a binary tree. The second tree is 5GB plus, finding matchings with data in the first tree (200MB). I need a search strategy that makes sense for this huge amount of data, therefore I chose a Binary Search tree. Entries are unique.