Why does fireTableChanged() on AbstractTableModel notify listeners last to first?

Question

This is obscure, but for some reason the notification in AbstractTableModel is last-to-first, causing a bug in my code. I can fix it, but I'm wondering if anyone knows why notification is done in this way?

public void fireTableChanged(TableModelEvent e) {
    // Guaranteed to return a non-null array
    Object[] listeners = listenerList.getListenerList();
    // Process the listeners last to first, notifying
    // those that are interested in this event
    for (int i = listeners.length-2; i>=0; i-=2) {
        if (listeners[i]==TableModelListener.class) {
        ((TableModelListener)listeners[i+1]).tableChanged(e);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I don't think there is a real reason for it.

Maybe they wanted extra-safety in case a listener is removes itself from the list of listeners while the event is fired (i.e. while we are still iterating over the listeners-list).

Although this would not really be necessary as the listenerList is copy-on-write...

Answer 2

Listeners get put into a Stack. So when they are notified they are "pop"ed out of the stack in the reverse order in which they are put in.

If the order of the listeners matter, you should try to resolve that without caring which order they are checked in. If it does matter, change the order you add the listeners.