Explain the use of iterators and their importance

An iterator is an object that can be "traversed" through. In other words, it is an object that can be accessed in iterations in place of the full object.

In Python, an iterator is any object that implements the iterator protocol. The protocol contains two built-in functions (iter() and next()). A list is a built-in iterator in python. However, to invoke next(), we would still need to convert it to an iterator object using the iter() method.

1newList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
2next(newList)

The output will be the following error:

This is because it is not fully implementing the iterator protocol.

1newList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
2object = iter(newList)
3next(object)

Now that it's fully implementing the protocol, our output will be:

11

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# newList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# next(newList)

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newList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

object = iter(newList)

next(object)