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Take and TakeWhile ExamplesUse the Take and TakeWhile extension methods to get the first several elements of an IEnumerable.
C#
This page was last reviewed on Nov 29, 2023.
Take. Take returns the first specified number of elements. It acts upon an IEnumerable sequence. It returns another IEnumerable sequence containing the specified elements.
Take returns the first elements of an IEnumerable. And TakeWhile, a more complex form of Take, accepts the first elements while a predicate method returns true.
Extension
Skip, SkipWhile
Example. We use the Take method. Take is a method in the System.Linq namespace that allows you to get the first several elements from a sequence. It receives an element count.
Part 1 This Take call returns the first 2 elements in the List. This could display the 2 oldest, first elements.
Part 2 The second Take call is chained after a Reverse string call. It operates on the result of Reverse.
Reverse
Part 3 The final Take call uses the top 1000 elements, which is nonsense as there are not 1000 elements in the List.
List
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; List<string> list = new List<string>(); list.Add("cat"); list.Add("dog"); list.Add("programmer"); // Part 1: get first 2 elements. var first = list.Take(2); foreach (string s in first) { Console.WriteLine(s); } Console.WriteLine(); // Part 2: get last 2 elements reversed. var last = list.Reverse<string>().Take(2); foreach (string s in last) { Console.WriteLine(s); } Console.WriteLine(); // Part 3: get first 1000 elements. var all = list.Take(1000); foreach (string s in all) { Console.WriteLine(s); } Console.WriteLine();
cat dog programmer dog cat dog programmer
TakeWhile. This method returns elements while a Predicate matches. The Predicate returns true or false. When it returns false, TakeWhile returns.
Info TakeWhile operates from the beginning of an IEnumerable collection. It can be called on the result of another method like Skip.
Predicate
Part 1 An integer array of 5 elements is declared. The first 3 numbers in it are odd, while the last 2 are even.
Odd, Even
Part 2 The TakeWhile extension method is invoked. It returns the first 3 odd numbers, but not the even numbers at the end.
Lambda
Modulo
using System; using System.Linq; // Part 1: create array with 5 numbers. int[] values = { 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 }; // Part 2: take all non-even (odd) numbers. var result = values.TakeWhile(item => item % 2 != 0); foreach (int value in result) { Console.WriteLine(value); }
1 3 5
Skip and Take. We can combine Skip with Take (and SkipWhile, TakeWhile). In this example we indicate elements we want to avoid based on a numeric pattern.
Info We call SkipWhile to skip some lower-value elements, and then call TakeWhile to take some until a limit is reached.
using System; using System.Linq; int[] values = { 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 }; // Use SkipWhile and TakeWhile together. var result = values.SkipWhile(v => v < 30).TakeWhile(v => v < 50); foreach (var value in result) { Console.WriteLine("RESULT: {0}", value); }
RESULT: 30 RESULT: 40
LINQ methods are often used together. Skip is useful when paired with Take. It allows you to avoid the first several elements in the sequence.
LINQ
A summary. Take() gets elements from a collection. Also, we saw Reverse with Take, and how to use extension methods. TakeWhile accepts a predicate and is more powerful.
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Sam Allen is passionate about computer languages. In the past, his work has been recommended by Apple and Microsoft and he has studied computers at a selective university in the United States.
This page was last updated on Nov 29, 2023 (edit link).
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