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

Another option to the use of structured arrays is using a view of a void type that joins the whole row into a single item:

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]])

b = np.ascontiguousarray(a).view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize * a.shape[1])))
_, idx = np.unique(b, return_index=True)

unique_a = a[idx]

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

EDIT Added np.ascontiguousarray following @seberg's recommendation. This will slow the method down if the array is not already contiguous.

EDIT The above can be slightly sped up, perhaps at the cost of clarity, by doing:

unique_a = np.unique(b).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])

Also, at least on my system, performance wise it is on par, or even better, than the lexsort method:

a = np.random.randint(2, size=(10000, 6))

%timeit np.unique(a.view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])
100 loops, best of 3: 3.17 ms per loop

%timeit ind = np.lexsort(a.T); a[np.concatenate(([True],np.any(a[ind[1:]]!=a[ind[:-1]],axis=1)))]
100 loops, best of 3: 5.93 ms per loop

a = np.random.randint(2, size=(10000, 100))

%timeit np.unique(a.view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])
10 loops, best of 3: 29.9 ms per loop

%timeit ind = np.lexsort(a.T); a[np.concatenate(([True],np.any(a[ind[1:]]!=a[ind[:-1]],axis=1)))]
10 loops, best of 3: 116 ms per loop

Answer 2

np.unique when I run it on np.random.random(100).reshape(10,10) returns all the unique individual elements, but you want the unique rows, so first you need to put them into tuples:

array = #your numpy array of lists
new_array = [tuple(row) for row in array]
uniques = np.unique(new_array)

That is the only way I see you changing the types to do what you want, and I am not sure if the list iteration to change to tuples is okay with your "not looping through"

Answer 3

I've compared the suggested alternative for speed and found that, surprisingly, the void view unique solution is even a bit faster than numpy's native unique with the axis argument. If you're looking for speed, you'll want

numpy.unique(
    a.view(numpy.dtype((numpy.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))
    ).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])

---

Code to reproduce the plot:

import numpy
import perfplot


def unique_void_view(a):
    return numpy.unique(
        a.view(numpy.dtype((numpy.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))
        ).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])


def lexsort(a):
    ind = numpy.lexsort(a.T)
    return a[ind[
        numpy.concatenate((
            [True], numpy.any(a[ind[1:]] != a[ind[:-1]], axis=1)
            ))
        ]]


def vstack(a):
    return numpy.vstack({tuple(row) for row in a})


def unique_axis(a):
    return numpy.unique(a, axis=0)


perfplot.show(
    setup=lambda n: numpy.random.randint(2, size=(n, 20)),
    kernels=[unique_void_view, lexsort, vstack, unique_axis],
    n_range=[2**k for k in range(15)],
    logx=True,
    logy=True,
    xlabel='len(a)',
    equality_check=None
    )

Answer 4

Yet another possible solution

np.vstack({tuple(row) for row in a})

Answer 5

np.unique works given a list of tuples:

>>> np.unique([(1, 1), (2, 2), (3, 3), (4, 4), (2, 2)])
Out[9]: 
array([[1, 1],
       [2, 2],
       [3, 3],
       [4, 4]])

With a list of lists it raises a TypeError: unhashable type: 'list'

Answer 6

Lets get the entire numpy matrix as a list, then drop duplicates from this list, and finally return our unique list back into a numpy matrix:

matrix_as_list=data.tolist() 
matrix_as_list:
[[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]]

uniq_list=list()
uniq_list.append(matrix_as_list[0])

[uniq_list.append(item) for item in matrix_as_list if item not in uniq_list]

unique_matrix=np.array(uniq_list)
unique_matrix:
array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])