*       {@link Object#equals(Object)}.
   *   <li>{@code false} in all other situations.
   * </ul>
   *
   * <p>This assumes that any non-null objects passed to this function conform to the {@code
   * equals()} contract.
   *
   * <p><b>Java 7+ users:</b> This method should be treated as deprecated; use {@link
   * java.util.Objects#equals} instead.
   */
  public static boolean equal(@CheckForNull Object a, @CheckForNull Object b) {

    T result = uncheckedCastNullableTToT(next);
    next = null;
    return result;
  }

  /**
   * Returns the next element in the iteration without advancing the iteration, according to the
   * contract of {@link PeekingIterator#peek()}.
   *
   * <p>Implementations of {@code AbstractIterator} that wish to expose this functionality should
   * implement {@code PeekingIterator}.
   */
  @ParametricNullness

 * elements, if there is no comparator) to test element equality. As a result, if the comparator is
 * not consistent with equals, some of the standard implementations may violate the {@code Set}
 * contract.
 *
 * <p>The {@code standard} methods and the collection views they return are not guaranteed to be
 * thread-safe, even when all of the methods that they depend on are thread-safe.
 *
 * @author Louis Wasserman