Groovy Goodness: Take and Drop Items from a List

When working with List object we get a lot of nice and useful methods we can use in Groovy. Since Groovy 1.8.1 we can use the methods take() and drop(). With the take() method we get items from the beginning of the List. We pass the number of items we want as an argument to the method.

To remove items from the beginning of the List we can use the drop() method. Here we pass the number of items we want to drop as an argument to the method. Please keep in mind the original list is not changed, the result of the drop() method is a new list.

def list = ['Simple', 'list', 'with', 5, 'items']

assert list.take(1) == ['Simple']
assert list.take(2) == ['Simple', 'list']
assert list.take(0) == []
// Whole list, because we take more items then the size of list
assert list.take(6) == ['Simple', 'list', 'with', 5, 'items']

assert list.drop(1) == ['list', 'with', 5, 'items']
assert list.drop(3) == [5, 'items']
assert list.drop(5) == []
assert list.drop(0) == ['Simple', 'list', 'with', 5, 'items']
assert list == ['Simple', 'list', 'with', 5, 'items']

// After reading Tim Yates' comment I have added 
// more samples showing drop() and take() also work on
// Maps, Iterators, CharSequences and arrays.
def array = ['Rock on!', 'Groovy baby!'] as String[]
assert array.take(1) == ['Rock on!'] as String[]
assert array.drop(1) == ['Groovy baby!'] as String[]

def range = 0..10
assert range.take(2) == [0,1]
assert range.take(4) == 0..3
assert range.drop(5) == 5..10

def map = [1: 'one', 2: 'two', 3: 'three']
assert map.take(2) == [1: 'one', 2: 'two']
assert map.drop(2) == [3: 'three']
assert map.drop(3) == [:]

def s = 'Hello Groovy world!'
assert s.take(5) == 'Hello'
assert s.drop(6) == 'Groovy world!'