System.Linq.Take Method

Filters a sequence by taking the first n elements.

public static IEnumerable<TSource> Take<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, int count);

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`source`	`IEnumerable<TSource>`	An `IEnumerable<T>` to return elements from.
`count`	`int`	The number of elements to return.

Returns

An IEnumerable<TSource> that contains the first count elements from the input sequence.

Exceptions

Type	Condition
`ArgumentNullException`	`source` is null.
`ArgumentOutOfRangeException`	`count` is negative.

Examples

Basic Usage

The following code example demonstrates how to use the Take method to retrieve the first three elements of an array.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

public class Example
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        int[] numbers = { 5, 4, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 8, 10, 1, 1, 1 };

        // Get the first 3 elements
        IEnumerable<int> firstThree = numbers.Take(3);

        Console.WriteLine("First three elements:");
        foreach (int num in firstThree)
        {
            Console.Write(num + " ");
        }
        // Output: 5 4 2
    }
}

Taking zero elements

If you specify zero for the count, an empty sequence is returned.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

public class Example
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string[] words = { "apple", "banana", "cherry" };

        // Take zero elements
        IEnumerable<string> zeroElements = words.Take(0);

        Console.WriteLine("Sequence with zero elements:");
        foreach (string word in zeroElements)
        {
            Console.Write(word + " ");
        }
        // Output: (empty line)
    }
}

Remarks

The Take extension method is used to limit the number of elements returned from a sequence. It is particularly useful when you only need a subset of data, such as the top N items or the first few results from a query.

If the number of elements in the source sequence is less than the specified count, the entire sequence is returned.

The Take method operates lazily. It does not return a new list or array immediately. Instead, it returns an iterator that yields the elements one by one as they are requested.