In Haskell, there is a function \"take n list\" which returns the first n elements from a list. For example \"sum (take 3 xs)\" sums up the first three elements in the list
Yeah, it's called Seq.take. Usage seems to be identical to Haskell's: Seq.takecount source. To use it on a list, use List.toSeq first. (Update: Apparently from the comments, this isn't necessary.)