Get all non-unique values (i.e.: duplicate/more th

Question

I need to check a JavaScript array to see if there are any duplicate values. What's the easiest way to do this? I just need to find what the duplicated values are - I don't actually need their indexes or how many times they are duplicated.

I know I can loop through the array and check all the other values for a match, but it seems like there should be an easier way. Any ideas? Thanks!

Similar question:

• Get all unique values in an array (remove duplicates)

Answer 1

ES6 offers the Set data structure which is basically an array that doesn't accept duplicates. With the Set data structure, there's a very easy way to find duplicates in an array (using only one loop).

Here's my code

function findDuplicate(arr) {
var set = new Set();
var duplicates = new Set();
  for (let i = 0; i< arr.length; i++) {
     var size = set.size;
     set.add(arr[i]);
     if (set.size === size) {
         duplicates.add(arr[i]);
     }
  }
 return duplicates;
}

Answer 2

With ES6 (or using Babel or Typescipt) you can simply do:

var duplicates = myArray.filter(i => myArray.filter(ii => ii === i).length > 1);

https://es6console.com/j58euhbt/

Answer 3

You could sort the array and then run through it and then see if the next (or previous) index is the same as the current. Assuming your sort algorithm is good, this should be less than O(n²):

var arr = [9, 9, 111, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7];
var sorted_arr = arr.slice().sort(); // You can define the comparing function here. 
                                     // JS by default uses a crappy string compare.
                                     // (we use slice to clone the array so the
                                     // original array won't be modified)
var results = [];
for (var i = 0; i < sorted_arr.length - 1; i++) {
    if (sorted_arr[i + 1] == sorted_arr[i]) {
        results.push(sorted_arr[i]);
    }
}

console.log(results);

Answer 4

ES5 only (i.e., it needs a filter() polyfill for IE8 and below):

var arrayToFilter = [ 4, 5, 5, 5, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3 ];

arrayToFilter.
    sort().
    filter( function(me,i,arr){
       return (i===0) || ( me !== arr[i-1] );
    });

Answer 5

Modifying @RaphaelMontanaro's solution, borrowing from @Nosredna's blog, here is what you could do if you just want to identify the duplicate elements from your array.

function identifyDuplicatesFromArray(arr) {
        var i;
        var len = arr.length;
        var obj = {};
        var duplicates = [];

        for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {

            if (!obj[arr[i]]) {

                obj[arr[i]] = {};

            }

            else
            {
                duplicates.push(arr[i]);
            }

        }
        return duplicates;
    }

Thanks for the elegant solution, @Nosredna!

Answer 6

If you want to elimate the duplicates, try this great solution:

function eliminateDuplicates(arr) {
  var i,
      len = arr.length,
      out = [],
      obj = {};

  for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
    obj[arr[i]] = 0;
  }
  for (i in obj) {
    out.push(i);
  }
  return out;
}

Source: http://dreaminginjavascript.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/eliminating-duplicates/