Limitto

Limitto is a term found in computing and data processing used to describe applying a bound to a value or collection in order to restrict the scope of an operation. The exact implementation and naming vary by language and library, but the core idea is to prevent results from exceeding a specified limit or to restrict the number of items processed or returned.

In numeric contexts, limitto typically denotes capping a value at a specified maximum. A common pattern is limitto(x, L), which yields the smaller of x and L. This behaves as a cap so that values do not exceed the designated limit, while values below the limit remain unchanged. The precise treatment of negative values or special cases depends on the language.

In sequence and collection contexts, limitto often refers to limiting the size of a result set. For example, limitto(list, n) would return the first n elements of the list, or the entire list if it contains fewer than n elements. Similar behavior can apply to strings, where limitto(text, n) returns the first n characters, depending on the language’s string handling rules.

Limitto appears under different names in various environments. In SQL-like systems, similar functionality is achieved with a LIMIT clause. Some programming libraries offer a dedicated limitto function for convenience, while others provide separate mechanisms (such as clamp, cap, or take) that achieve the same practical effect.

See also: clamp, cap, take, head, limit, LIMIT clause.