Java Stream limit()

Stream limit(n) is used to retrieve a number of elements from the Stream while the count must not be greater than n. The limit() method returns a new Stream consisting of the elements of the given stream, truncated to be no longer than maxSize in length.

1. Stream limit() Method

1.1. Syntax

Stream<T> limit(long maxSize)

Here maxSize the number of elements the stream should be limited to; and the method return value is a new Stream consisting of elements picked from the original stream.

1.2. Description

• Stream.limit() method is short-circuiting intermediate operation. An intermediate operation is short-circuiting if, when presented with infinite input, it may produce a finite stream as a result. Please note that a terminal operation is short-circuiting if, when presented with infinite input, it may terminate in finite time.
• It returns a stream consisting of the maximum elements, no longer than given size in length, of current stream.
• Generally, limit() is cheap operation but may sometimes be expensive if maxSize has a large value and stream is parallely processed.
• Using an unordered stream source (such as generate(Supplier)) or removing the ordering constraint with BaseStream.unordered() may result in significant speedups of limit() in parallel pipelines.
• limit() returns the first n elements in the encounter order.

2. Stream limit() Examples

Example 1: Getting first 10 even numbers from an infinite stream of even numbers

In the given below example, we are creating an infinite stream using iterate() method. Then we are taking the first 10 even numbers using the method limit(10).

Finally, we are collecting the even numbers from the stream into a List using collect(Collectors.toList()) method.

Stream<Integer> evenNumInfiniteStream = Stream.iterate(0, n -> n + 2);

List<Integer> newList = evenNumInfiniteStream.limit(10)
                                .collect(Collectors.toList());

System.out.println(newList);	

Program output.

[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]

3. Difference between skip() and limit()

• The limit(N) method returns first N elements in the encounter order of the Stream.
• The skip(N) discards the first N elements of the Stream.

List<Integer> list = Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
    .skip(6)
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

System.out.println(newList);	//[7, 8, 9, 10]

4. Conclusion

Java 8 Stream limit() method can be useful in certain cases where we need to get the elements from a stream and the count of elements will be determined at runtime.

The fact, that it returns the elements in encounter order, makes it very useful for normal business usecases as well.

Happy Learning !!

Sourcecode on Github