The legacy Iterator protocol

Warning: The legacy iterator protocol was a SpiderMonkey-specific feature, which is removed in Firefox 58+. For future-facing usages, consider using for..of loops and the iterator protocol.

The deprecated Firefox-only iterator protocol

Firefox, prior to version 26 implemented another iterator protocol that is similar to the standard ES2015 Iterator protocol.

An object is an legacy iterator when it implements a next() method with the following semantics, and throws StopIteration at the end of iteration.

Property	Value
`next`	A zero arguments function that returns an value.

Difference between legacy and ES2015 iterator protocols

The value was returned directly as a return value of calls to next, instead of the value property of a placeholder object
Iteration termination was expressed by throwing a StopIteration object.

Simple example with the old protocol

function makeIterator(array){
    var nextIndex = 0;

    return {
       next: function(){
           if(nextIndex < array.length){
               return array[nextIndex++];
           else
               throw new StopIteration();
       }
    }
}

var it = makeIterator(['yo', 'ya']);

console.log(it.next()); // 'yo'
console.log(it.next()); // 'ya'
try{
    console.log(it.next());
}
catch(e){
    if(e instanceof StopIteration){
         // iteration over
    }
}