The sample() operator on Flow sets up a timer to go off periodically, based on the number of milliseconds that you supply as a parameter (here, 250 milliseconds). When the timer goes off, whatever the last object was that had been emitted upstream is passed along downstream, if that object had not been previously passed along. This continues until the flow is closed or canceled.

So, in this case, 0 and 1 get emitted by the source Flow during the first 250-millisecond sampling window, so 1 gets emitted downstream. 2 and 3 get emitted by the source Flow during the second 250-millisecond sampling window, so 3 gets emitted downstream. And the source Flow is closed before the third 250-millisecond sampling window ends, so the Flow returned by sample() is closed, without emitting 4.

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A Conflated Channel A Fixed-Buffer Channel A Parallel Coroutine Sample A Sequential Coroutine Sample A Simple Channel A Simple Coroutine Sample A Simple Flow A Simple SharedFlow A Simple StateFlow A Zero-Buffer Channel async() BroadcastChannel cancelAndJoin() Canceling a Job Canceling a Parent Cancels Its Children Canceling and Cooperation catch() Channel and receive() Channels and Fan-out combine() Operator Contexts and Jobs Cooperation by Checking isActive Cooperation by Yielding debounce() Operator distinctUntilChanged() Operator distinctUntilChangedBy() Operator drop() Operator dropWhile() Operator filter() Operator filterIsInstance() Operator filterNot() Operator filterNotNull() Operator first() and Flow flattenConcat() Operator flattenMerge() Operator Flow Actions Flow onStart() flowOf() flowOn() Flows and Exceptions fold() Operator Hot Channels Via offer() invokeOnCompletion() Jobs and Parents Jobs Cancel When They Crash join() Lazy Coroutines map() Operator mapLatest() Operator mapNotNull() Operator Massively Parallel Coroutines MutableSharedFlow Replay Option Non-Cancellable Coroutines Parent Jobs Cancel When a Child Crashes promise() retry() retryWhen() runBlocking() sample() Operator scan() Operator single() and singleOrNull() Starting Lazy Coroutines StateFlow and Content Equality suspend Functions and Flows Suspending main() take() Operator takeWhile() Operator The Channel() Function TimeoutCancellationException Timeouts toList() and toSet() toList() for Channel withIndex() Operator withTimeoutOrNull() zip() Operator
A Simple Flow A Simple SharedFlow A Simple StateFlow catch() combine() Operator debounce() Operator distinctUntilChanged() Operator distinctUntilChangedBy() Operator drop() Operator dropWhile() Operator filter() Operator filterIsInstance() Operator filterNot() Operator filterNotNull() Operator first() and Flow flattenConcat() Operator flattenMerge() Operator Flow Actions Flow onStart() flowOf() flowOn() Flows and Exceptions fold() Operator map() Operator mapLatest() Operator mapNotNull() Operator MutableSharedFlow Replay Option retry() retryWhen() sample() Operator scan() Operator single() and singleOrNull() StateFlow and Content Equality suspend Functions and Flows take() Operator takeWhile() Operator toList() and toSet() withIndex() Operator zip() Operator
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