Get unique values in List of Lists in python

Question

I want to create a list (or set) of all unique values appearing in a list of lists in python. I have something like this:

aList=[['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]

and i would like the following:

unique_values=['a','b','c']

I know that for a list of strings you can just use set(aList), but I can't figure how to solve this in a list of lists, since set(aList) gets me the error message

unhashable type: 'list'

How can i solve it?

Answer 1

array = [['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]
unique_values = list(reduce(lambda i, j: set(i) | set(j), array))

Answer 2

You can use itertools's chain to flatten your array and then call set on it:

from itertools import chain

array = [['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]
print set(chain(*array))

If you are expecting a list object:

print list(set(chain(*array)))

Answer 3

You can use numpy.unique:

import numpy
import operator
print numpy.unique(reduce(operator.add, [['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]))
# ['a' 'b' 'c']

Answer 4

Try to this.

array = [['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]
res=()
for item in array:
    res = list(set(res) | set(item))
print res

Output:

['a', 'c', 'b']

Answer 5

array = [['a','b'], ['a', 'b','c'], ['a']]
result = set(x for l in array for x in l)