# Collecting zip
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/collecting-zip/20739
**Category:** New to Julia
**Created:** [February 13, 2019, 10:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/collecting-zip/20739 "2019-02-13T10:09:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@abulak](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/abulak)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2019, 10:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/collecting-zip/20739/1 "2019-02-13T10:09:20Z")
what is the status of collecting `zip` of iterators of different lengths?
Docs state that `zip` “Run multiple iterators at the same time, until any of them is exhausted.” Simply iterating truncates:
```julia
julia> a = 1:5; b = ["a", "b", "c"];
julia> for (x,y) in zip(a, b)
@show x,y
end
(x, y) = (1, "a")
(x, y) = (2, "b")
(x, y) = (3, "c")
```
collecting however…
```julia
julia> collect(zip(a,b))
ERROR: DimensionMismatch("dimensions must match")
Stacktrace:
[1] promote_shape at ./indices.jl:154 [inlined]
[2] axes(::Base.Iterators.Zip2{UnitRange{Int64},Array{String,1}}) at ./iterators.jl:291
[3] _similar_for at ./array.jl:533 [inlined]
[4] _collect at ./array.jl:563 [inlined]
[5] collect(::Base.Iterators.Zip2{UnitRange{Int64},Array{String,1}}) at ./array.jl:557
[6] top-level scope at none:0
```
related issue: [Do not truncate zip inputs · Issue #20499 · JuliaLang/julia · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/20499)
even stranger: if we set `b = "abc"` collecting works:
```julia
julia> b2 = "abc"; collect(zip(a,b2))
3-element Array{Tuple{Int64,Char},1}:
(1, 'a')
(2, 'b')
(3, 'c')
```
---
### Author:  [@bennedich](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bennedich)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2019, 11:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/collecting-zip/20739/2 "2019-02-13T11:02:08Z")
I think [this is the relevant issue](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/29927), and it seems still unresolved.
The difference between the array and the string is that they have return different values for `IteratorSize`:
```julia
julia> Base.IteratorSize(["a", "b", "c"])
Base.HasShape{1}()
julia> Base.IteratorSize("abc")
Base.HasLength()
```
This suggests the following non-intrusive workaround for your case:
```julia
function zip_collect(itr)
itrsize = Base.IteratorSize(itr)
itrsize isa Base.HasShape && (itrsize = Base.HasLength())
Base._collect(1:1, itr, Base.IteratorEltype(itr), itrsize)
end
```
With result:
```julia
julia> zip_collect(zip(1:5, ["a", "b", "c"]))
3-element Array{Tuple{Int64,String},1}:
(1, "a")
(2, "b")
(3, "c")
julia> zip_collect(zip(1:5, "abc"))
3-element Array{Tuple{Int64,Char},1}:
(1, 'a')
(2, 'b')
(3, 'c')
```