Find unique rows in numpy.array

Question

I need to find unique rows in a numpy.array.

For example:

>>> a # I have
array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])
>>> new_a # I want to get to
array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

I know that i can create a set and loop over the array, but I am looking for an efficient pure numpy solution. I believe that there is a way to set data type to void and then I could just use numpy.unique, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work.

Answer 1

The numpy_indexed package (disclaimer: I am its author) wraps the solution posted by Jaime in a nice and tested interface, plus many more features:

import numpy_indexed as npi
new_a = npi.unique(a)  # unique elements over axis=0 (rows) by default

Answer 2

Here is another variation for @Greg pythonic answer

np.vstack(set(map(tuple, a)))

Answer 3

None of these answers worked for me. I'm assuming as my unique rows contained strings and not numbers. However this answer from another thread did work:

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/38461043/5402386

You can use .count() and .index() list's methods

coor = np.array([[10, 10], [12, 9], [10, 5], [12, 9]])
coor_tuple = [tuple(x) for x in coor]
unique_coor = sorted(set(coor_tuple), key=lambda x: coor_tuple.index(x))
unique_count = [coor_tuple.count(x) for x in unique_coor]
unique_index = [coor_tuple.index(x) for x in unique_coor]

Answer 4

As of NumPy 1.13, one can simply choose the axis for selection of unique values in any N-dim array. To get unique rows, one can do:

unique_rows = np.unique(original_array, axis=0)

Answer 5

For general purpose like 3D or higher multidimensional nested arrays, try this:

import numpy as np

def unique_nested_arrays(ar):
    origin_shape = ar.shape
    origin_dtype = ar.dtype
    ar = ar.reshape(origin_shape[0], np.prod(origin_shape[1:]))
    ar = np.ascontiguousarray(ar)
    unique_ar = np.unique(ar.view([('', origin_dtype)]*np.prod(origin_shape[1:])))
    return unique_ar.view(origin_dtype).reshape((unique_ar.shape[0], ) + origin_shape[1:])

which satisfies your 2D dataset:

a = np.array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])
unique_nested_arrays(a)

gives:

array([[0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
   [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
   [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

But also 3D arrays like:

b = np.array([[[1, 1, 1], [0, 1, 1]],
              [[0, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1]],
              [[1, 1, 1], [0, 1, 1]],
              [[1, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1]]])
unique_nested_arrays(b)

gives:

array([[[0, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1]],
   [[1, 1, 1], [0, 1, 1]],
   [[1, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1]]])

Answer 6

We can actually turn m x n numeric numpy array into m x 1 numpy string array, please try using the following function, it provides count, inverse_idx and etc, just like numpy.unique:

import numpy as np

def uniqueRow(a):
    #This function turn m x n numpy array into m x 1 numpy array storing 
    #string, and so the np.unique can be used

    #Input: an m x n numpy array (a)
    #Output unique m' x n numpy array (unique), inverse_indx, and counts 

    s = np.chararray((a.shape[0],1))
    s[:] = '-'

    b = (a).astype(np.str)

    s2 = np.expand_dims(b[:,0],axis=1) + s + np.expand_dims(b[:,1],axis=1)

    n = a.shape[1] - 2    

    for i in range(0,n):
         s2 = s2 + s + np.expand_dims(b[:,i+2],axis=1)

    s3, idx, inv_, c = np.unique(s2,return_index = True,  return_inverse = True, return_counts = True)

    return a[idx], inv_, c

Example:

A = np.array([[ 3.17   9.502  3.291],
  [ 9.984  2.773  6.852],
  [ 1.172  8.885  4.258],
  [ 9.73   7.518  3.227],
  [ 8.113  9.563  9.117],
  [ 9.984  2.773  6.852],
  [ 9.73   7.518  3.227]])

B, inv_, c = uniqueRow(A)

Results:

B:
[[ 1.172  8.885  4.258]
[ 3.17   9.502  3.291]
[ 8.113  9.563  9.117]
[ 9.73   7.518  3.227]
[ 9.984  2.773  6.852]]

inv_:
[3 4 1 0 2 4 0]

c:
[2 1 1 1 2]