Using String.split(regExp, limit) - Limit not respected beyond 11

Question

Got an interesting situation where I'm trying to make use of String.split(regExp, limit) to chunk a big list into smaller lists within a loop. However it seems that when the limit is set beyond 11, it will only ever return a list size off 11. Here's an example below:

Integer CHUNK_SIZE = 15;
Set<String> examples = new Set<String> { 'Cats', 'Dogs', 'Ducks', 'Birds', 'Dogs1', 'Ducks1', 'Birds1', 'Dogs2', 'Ducks2', 'Birds2', 'Dogs3', 'Ducks3', 'Birds3', 'Dogs4', 'Ducks4', 'Birds4', 'Dogs5', 'Ducks5', 'Birds6', 'Dogs6', 'Ducks6', 'Birds7', 'Dogs7', 'Ducks7', 'Birds8'};
List<String> chunkedExamples = examples.toString().substringBetween('{', '}').split(',', CHUNK_SIZE);
System.assertEquals(CHUNK_SIZE, chunkedExamples.size());

Is there an issue with the code snippet or am I misunderstanding how the limit input works? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The limit works as you expect, the toString() of Set however, does not. This is what it currently yields;

{Birds, Birds1, Birds2, Birds3, Birds4, Birds6, Birds7, Birds8, Cats, Dogs, ...}

As @RobBaillie commented, this is not a good way to slice the set. There are plenty of code samples of slice methods using the proper data types instead of using string manipulations. Or you could write your own, of course.