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

var input = ['a', 'b', 'a', 'c', 'c'],
    duplicates = [],
    i, j;
for (i = 0, j = input.length; i < j; i++) {
  if (duplicates.indexOf(input[i]) === -1 && input.indexOf(input[i], i+1) !== -1) {
    duplicates.push(input[i]);
  }
}

console.log(duplicates);

Answer 2

I did not like most answers.

Why? Too complicated, too much code, inefficient code and many do not answer the question, which is to find the duplicates (and not to give an array without the duplicates).

Next function returns all duplicates:

function GetDuplicates(arr) {
  var i, out=[], obj={};
  for (i=0; i < arr.length; i++) 
    obj[arr[i]] == undefined ? obj[arr[i]] ++ : out.push(arr[i]);
  return out;
}  

Because most of the time it is of no use to return ALL duplicates, but just to tell which duplicate values exist. In that case you return an array with unique duplicates ;-)

function GetDuplicates(arr) {
  var i, out=[], obj={};
  for (i=0; i < arr.length; i++)
    obj[arr[i]] == undefined ? obj[arr[i]] ++ : out.push(arr[i]);
  return GetUnique(out);
}

function GetUnique(arr) {
  return $.grep(arr, function(elem, index) {
    return index == $.inArray(elem, arr);
  });
}

Maybe somebody else thinks the same.

Answer 3

When all you need is to check that there are no duplicates as asked in this question you can use the every() method:

[1, 2, 3].every(function(elem, i, array){return array.lastIndexOf(elem) === i}) // true

[1, 2, 1].every(function(elem, i, array){return array.lastIndexOf(elem) === i}) // false

Note that every() doesn't work for IE 8 and below.

I use lastIndexOf() because it might be more efficient than indexOf() if function callbacks made by every() are made in the index order, but that's not proven.

In CoffeeScript I'm using this:

Array::duplicates = -> not @every((elem, i, array) -> array.lastIndexOf(elem) is i)

[1, 2, 3].duplicates() // false
[1, 2, 1].duplicates() // true

Answer 4

I prefer the function way of doing this.

function removeDuplicates(links) {
    return _.reduce(links, function(list, elem) { 
        if (list.indexOf(elem) == -1) {
            list.push(elem);
        }   
        return list;
    }, []);
}

This uses underscore, but Array has a reduce function, too

Answer 5

UPDATED: The following uses an optimized combined strategy. It optimizes primitive lookups to benefit from hash O(1) lookup time (running unique on an array of primitives is O(n)). Object lookups are optimized by tagging objects with a unique id while iterating through so so identifying duplicate objects is also O(1) per item and O(n) for the whole list. The only exception is items that are frozen, but those are rare and a fallback is provided using an array and indexOf.

var unique = function(){
  var hasOwn = {}.hasOwnProperty,
      toString = {}.toString,
      uids = {};

  function uid(){
    var key = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2);
    return key in uids ? uid() : uids[key] = key;
  }

  function unique(array){
    var strings = {}, numbers = {}, others = {},
        tagged = [], failed = [],
        count = 0, i = array.length,
        item, type;

    var id = uid();

    while (i--) {
      item = array[i];
      type = typeof item;
      if (item == null || type !== 'object' && type !== 'function') {
        // primitive
        switch (type) {
          case 'string': strings[item] = true; break;
          case 'number': numbers[item] = true; break;
          default: others[item] = item; break;
        }
      } else {
        // object
        if (!hasOwn.call(item, id)) {
          try {
            item[id] = true;
            tagged[count++] = item;
          } catch (e){
            if (failed.indexOf(item) === -1)
              failed[failed.length] = item;
          }
        }
      }
    }

    // remove the tags
    while (count--)
      delete tagged[count][id];

    tagged = tagged.concat(failed);
    count = tagged.length;

    // append primitives to results
    for (i in strings)
      if (hasOwn.call(strings, i))
        tagged[count++] = i;

    for (i in numbers)
      if (hasOwn.call(numbers, i))
        tagged[count++] = +i;

    for (i in others)
      if (hasOwn.call(others, i))
        tagged[count++] = others[i];

    return tagged;
  }

  return unique;
}();

If you have ES6 Collections available, then there is a much simpler and significantly faster version. (shim for IE9+ and other browsers here: https://github.com/Benvie/ES6-Harmony-Collections-Shim)

function unique(array){
  var seen = new Set;
  return array.filter(function(item){
    if (!seen.has(item)) {
      seen.add(item);
      return true;
    }
  });
}

Answer 6

This should get you what you want, Just the duplicates.

function find_duplicates(arr) {
  var len=arr.length,
      out=[],
      counts={};

  for (var i=0;i<len;i++) {
    var item = arr[i];
    counts[item] = counts[item] >= 1 ? counts[item] + 1 : 1;
    if (counts[item] === 2) {
      out.push(item);
    }
  }

  return out;
}

find_duplicates(['one',2,3,4,4,4,5,6,7,7,7,'pig','one']); // -> ['one',4,7] in no particular order.