Why is getColumnSpecs() private?

Node Development
1

Is there a good reason why getColumnSpecs() in the class DataTableSpec is private?

These are three get routines from that class:

    public DataColumnSpec getColumnSpec(final int index)

    DataColumnSpec[] getColumnSpecs()

    public DataColumnSpec getColumnSpec(final String column)

The middle routine returns all of the columnSpecs:

    DataColumnSpec[] getColumnSpecs() {
        return m_columnSpecs;
    }

But as it is not marked as public I can't iterate over them without using the counter.

It's a small issue but perhaps illuminating. Note that I'm still using KNIME 2.10 and have not yet upgraded to KNIME 2.11.
 

2

The arrays are mutable and that would cause problems if the users of the API would null out some of the specs. It think DataTableSpec is an Iterable<DataColumnSpec>, so no need to use indices unless you want those.