Size-limited queue that holds last N elements in Java

A very simple & quick question on Java libraries: is there a ready-made class that implements a Queue with a fixed maximum size - i.e. it always allows addition of elements, but it will silently remove head elements to accomodate space for newly added elements.

Of course, it's trivial to implement it manually:

import java.util.LinkedList;

public class LimitedQueue<E> extends LinkedList<E> {
    private int limit;

    public LimitedQueue(int limit) {
        this.limit = limit;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean add(E o) {
        super.add(o);
        while (size() > limit) { super.remove(); }
        return true;
    }
}

As far as I see, there's no standard implementation in Java stdlibs, but may be there's one in Apache Commons or something like that?

Solution 1:

Apache commons collections 4 has a CircularFifoQueue<> which is what you are looking for. Quoting the javadoc:

CircularFifoQueue is a first-in first-out queue with a fixed size that replaces its oldest element if full.

    import java.util.Queue;
    import org.apache.commons.collections4.queue.CircularFifoQueue;

    Queue<Integer> fifo = new CircularFifoQueue<Integer>(2);
    fifo.add(1);
    fifo.add(2);
    fifo.add(3);
    System.out.println(fifo);

    // Observe the result: 
    // [2, 3]

If you are using an older version of the Apache commons collections (3.x), you can use the CircularFifoBuffer which is basically the same thing without generics.

Update: updated answer following release of commons collections version 4 that supports generics.

Solution 2:

Guava now has an EvictingQueue, a non-blocking queue which automatically evicts elements from the head of the queue when attempting to add new elements onto the queue and it is full.

import java.util.Queue;
import com.google.common.collect.EvictingQueue;

Queue<Integer> fifo = EvictingQueue.create(2); 
fifo.add(1); 
fifo.add(2); 
fifo.add(3); 
System.out.println(fifo); 

// Observe the result: 
// [2, 3]

Solution 3:

I like @FractalizeR solution. But I would in addition keep and return the value from super.add(o)!

public class LimitedQueue<E> extends LinkedList<E> {

    private int limit;

    public LimitedQueue(int limit) {
        this.limit = limit;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean add(E o) {
        boolean added = super.add(o);
        while (added && size() > limit) {
           super.remove();
        }
        return added;
    }
}