Simplest way to get the top n elements of a Scala Iterable

Question

Is there a simple and efficient solution to determine the top n elements of a Scala Iterable? I mean something like

iter.toList.sortBy(_.myAttr).take(2)
         


        

Answer 1

Yet another version:

val big = (1 to 100000)

def maxes[A](n:Int)(l:Traversable[A])(implicit o:Ordering[A]) =
    l.foldLeft(collection.immutable.SortedSet.empty[A]) { (xs,y) =>
      if (xs.size < n) xs + y
      else {
        import o._
        val first = xs.firstKey
        if (first < y) xs - first + y
        else xs
      }
    }

println(maxes(4)(big))
println(maxes(2)(List("a","ab","c","z")))

Using the Set force the list to have unique values:

def maxes2[A](n:Int)(l:Traversable[A])(implicit o:Ordering[A]) =
    l.foldLeft(List.empty[A]) { (xs,y) =>
      import o._
      if (xs.size < n) (y::xs).sort(lt _)
      else {
        val first = xs.head
        if (first < y) (y::(xs - first)).sort(lt _)
        else xs
      }
    }