Java Stream skip() Example

📘 Premium Read: Access my best content on Medium member-only articles — deep dives into Java, Spring Boot, Microservices, backend architecture, interview preparation, career advice, and industry-standard best practices.

✅ Some premium posts are free to read — no account needed. Follow me on Medium to stay updated and support my writing.

🎓 Top 10 Udemy Courses (Huge Discount): Explore My Udemy Courses — Learn through real-time, project-based development.

▶️ Subscribe to My YouTube Channel (172K+ subscribers): Java Guides on YouTube

1. Introduction

In this quick tutorial, we will learn how to use the Java Stream skip() method with an example. The skip() method is an intermediate operation that creates a new stream by discarding the first n elements of the original stream. It is particularly useful for skipping a specified number of elements in a stream when you're only interested in the remaining elements.

Key Points

1. skip() is used to discard the first n elements of a stream.

2. It is useful for pagination or when you need to ignore a certain number of elements from the beginning of the stream.

3. The skip() method returns an empty stream if the stream contains fewer than n elements.

2. Program Steps

1. Create a Stream of elements.

2. Apply the skip() method to discard the first n elements.

3. Collect or process the remaining elements of the stream.

3. Code Program

import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import java.util.stream.Stream;

public class StreamSkipExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Stream of numbers
        Stream<Integer> numberStream = Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10);

        // Skip the first 5 numbers
        List<Integer> remainingNumbers = numberStream.skip(5).collect(Collectors.toList());
        System.out.println("Remaining numbers after skipping 5: " + remainingNumbers);
    }
}

Output:

Remaining numbers after skipping 5: [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Explanation:

1. Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) creates a stream of the first ten integers.

2. numberStream.skip(5) skips the first five elements of the stream.

3. remainingNumbers.collect(Collectors.toList()) collects the remaining elements into a list, which includes numbers 6 through 10.