Reference · Lists

take

take(list | str | null, int) -> list | str

What it does

The first n items of a list, or the first n characters of a string, as a new value. Fewer than n gives what there is. null counts as an empty list and gives [].

A negative n counts as 0, unlike slice, so a count worked out by subtraction stays safe.

Examples

print(take([1, 2, 3], 2))print(take("hello", 2))print(take(sort([5, 3, 9, 1]), 2))

[1, 2]he[1, 3]

Edge cases

• n at or past the length gives the whole value, not an error.
• 0 or a negative n gives [] or "".
• A string is cut by character, not by byte, so an accented letter is one.
• take(null, n) is [].
• take(xs, n) is slice(xs, 0, n).

print(take([1, 2, 3], 10), take([1, 2], 0), take([1, 2], -1))print(take("añb", 2), take("hi", 5), take("", 1) == "")print(take(null, 2), take([1, 2, 3], 2) == slice([1, 2, 3], 0, 2))

[1, 2, 3] [] []añ hi true[] true

Errors

A first argument that is not a list, a string or null, or a count that is not an int, is a runtime error, not an error value.

print(take(5, 1))

line 1: `take` expects a list as argument 1, got int

print(take([1, 2], "2"))

line 1: `take` expects an int as argument 2, got str

Chaining

In a pipeline the list comes first and the count is the only argument: xs | take(n). With drop it pages through a list.

print(range(10) | drop(2) | take(3))print(["pear", "fig", "apple"] | sort_by(len) | reverse | take(2))print("2026-10-29" | take(4))

[2, 3, 4]["apple", "pear"]2026

See also

drop, slice, first, range

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