Merge two arrays and remove duplicates in Java

Question

I am having trouble removing the duplicates from two arrays that have been merged into one. I have written the following code that merges the arrays, yet I'm not sure how to remove the duplicates from the final array. Assume the arrays are already sorted.

public static int[] merge(int[] list1, int[] list2) {
    int[] result = new int[list1.length + list2.length];

    int i = 0;
    int j = 0;

    for (int k = 0; k < (list1.length + list2.length); k++) {
        if (i >= list1.length) {
            result[k] = list2[j];
            j++;
        } 
        else if (j >= list2.length) {
            result[k] = list1[i];
            i++;
        } 
        else {
            if (list1[i] < list2[j]) {
                result[k] = list1[i];
                i++;
            } else {
                result[k] = list2[j];
                j++;
            }
        }
    }
    return result;
}

Answer 1

Ok, someone hated all the answers. Here's another attempt that combines two stackoverflow q's, combining arrays and removing dupes.

This one runs a good deal faster than my earlier attempt on two lists of a million ints.

public int[] mergeArrays2(int[] arr1, int[] arr2){
    int[] merged = new int[arr1.length + arr2.length];
    System.arraycopy(arr1, 0, merged, 0, arr1.length);
    System.arraycopy(arr2, 0, merged, arr1.length, arr2.length);

    Set<Integer> nodupes = new HashSet<Integer>();

    for(int i=0;i<merged.length;i++){
        nodupes.add(merged[i]);
    }

    int[] nodupesarray = new int[nodupes.size()];
    int i = 0;
    Iterator<Integer> it = nodupes.iterator();
    while(it.hasNext()){
        nodupesarray[i] = it.next();
        i++;
    }



    return nodupesarray;
}

console output:

INFO [main] (TestMergeArray.java:40) - creating two lists of a million ints
DEBUG [main] (TestMergeArray.java:41) - list 1 size : 1000000
DEBUG [main] (TestMergeArray.java:42) - list 2 size : 1000000
INFO [main] (TestMergeArray.java:56) - now merging
INFO [main] (TestMergeArray.java:59) - done, final list size is 864975

Answer 2

Here's a technique that iterates the arrays just once and does not use a hash to detect duplicates.

import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class SortedMerge {

    public static int[] merge(int[] array1, int[] array2) {
        int[] a;
        int[] b;
        List<Integer> c = new ArrayList<Integer>();
        int i = 0;
        int j = 0;

        // b is longer than a
        if (array1.length > array2.length) {
            a = array2;
            b = array1;
        } else {
            a = array1;
            b = array2;
        }

        while (j < b.length) {
            int bb = b[j];

            if (i < a.length) {
                int aa = a[i];

                if (aa > bb) {
                    c.add(bb);
                    j++;
                } else {
                    c.add(aa);
                    i++;
                    if (aa == bb) {
                        j++;
                    }
                }
            } else {
                c.add(bb);
                j++;
            }
        }

        // java 8 List<Integer> to int[]
        return c.stream().mapToInt(Integer::intValue).toArray();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        int[] array1 = new int[] { 3, 5, 8, 11, 14 };
        int[] array2 = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 15, 17 };
        int[] c = merge(array1, array2);

        for (int i = 0; i < c.length; i++) {
            System.out.format("%d,", c[i]);
        }
        System.out.println();
        // output> 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,11,14,15,17,
    }

}

Answer 3

Call your merge method and do the followings. I tested it. It works fine.

int[] result = merge(count, count1);

    Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<Integer>();
    try {
        for(int i = 0; i < result.length; i++) {
            set.add(result[i]);
        }
        System.out.println(set);
    }
    catch(Exception e) {}

`

Answer 4

Can you use ArrayLists? ArrayLists would make this very easy to do.

 //Consider n1 to be some global or instance variable.

 import java.util.ArrayList;
 public void Add(ArrayList<Integer> n2) {

     for(int i = 0; i < n2.size(); i++) {
         if(!n1.contains(i))
             n1.add(n2.get(i));
     }
}

Answer 5

package com.string.merge;

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class MergeArrayAndRemoveDuplicate {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] a = { 1, 2, 2, 3, 1, 5, 3 };
        int[] b = { 4, 3, 1, 5, 7, 8, 4, 2 };

        ArrayList<Integer> l = new ArrayList<>();
        for (int i = 0; i < (a.length > b.length ? a.length : b.length); i++) {
            if (i < a.length) {
                int c = 0;
                while (c <= l.size()) {
                    if (l.contains(a[i]) == false) {
                        l.add(a[i]);
                    }
                    c++;
                }
            }
            if (i < b.length) {
                int c = 0;
                while (c <= l.size()) {
                    if (l.contains(b[i]) == false) {
                        l.add(b[i]);
                    }
                    c++;
                }

            }
        }
        System.out.println(l);
    }

}

o/p-[1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8]

Answer 6

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class MergeListAndRemoveDuplicate {
public static void main(String[] args) {

    int a[] = { 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5 };
    int b[] = { 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
    boolean flag = true;
    List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();

    for (int i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < b.length; j++) {
            if (a[i] == b[j]) {
                flag = false;
            }
            if (i == j && !list.contains(b[j])) {
                list.add(b[j]);
            }

        }
        if (flag == true) {
            list.add(a[i]);
        }
    }

    System.out.println(list);

}

}