For example, given the list ['one', 'two', 'one'], the algorithm should return True, whereas given ['one', 'two', 'three'] it should return False.
How do I check if there are duplicates in a flat list?
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15 Answers
I thought it would be useful to compare the timings of the different solutions presented here. For this I used my own library simple_benchmark:
So indeed for this case the solution from Denis Otkidach is fastest.
Some of the approaches also exhibit a much steeper curve, these are the approaches that scale quadratic with the number of elements (Alex Martellis first solution, wjandrea and both of Xavier Decorets solutions). Also important to mention is that the pandas solution from Keiku has a very big constant factor. But for larger lists it almost catches up with the other solutions.
And in case the duplicate is at the first position. This is useful to see which solutions are short-circuiting:
Here several approaches don't short-circuit: Kaiku, Frank, Xavier_Decoret (first solution), Turn, Alex Martelli (first solution) and the approach presented by Denis Otkidach (which was fastest in the no-duplicate case).
I included a function from my own library here: iteration_utilities.all_distinct which can compete with the fastest solution in the no-duplicates case and performs in constant-time for the duplicate-at-begin case (although not as fastest).
The code for the benchmark:
from collections import Counter
from functools import reduce
import pandas as pd
from simple_benchmark import BenchmarkBuilder
from iteration_utilities import all_distinct
b = BenchmarkBuilder()
@b.add_function()
def Keiku(l):
return pd.Series(l).duplicated().sum() > 0
@b.add_function()
def Frank(num_list):
unique = []
dupes = []
for i in num_list:
if i not in unique:
unique.append(i)
else:
dupes.append(i)
if len(dupes) != 0:
return False
else:
return True
@b.add_function()
def wjandrea(iterable):
seen = []
for x in iterable:
if x in seen:
return True
seen.append(x)
return False
@b.add_function()
def user(iterable):
clean_elements_set = set()
clean_elements_set_add = clean_elements_set.add
for possible_duplicate_element in iterable:
if possible_duplicate_element in clean_elements_set:
return True
else:
clean_elements_set_add( possible_duplicate_element )
return False
@b.add_function()
def Turn(l):
return Counter(l).most_common()[0][1] > 1
def getDupes(l):
seen = set()
seen_add = seen.add
for x in l:
if x in seen or seen_add(x):
yield x
@b.add_function()
def F1Rumors(l):
try:
if next(getDupes(l)): return True # Found a dupe
except StopIteration:
pass
return False
def decompose(a_list):
return reduce(
lambda u, o : (u[0].union([o]), u[1].union(u[0].intersection([o]))),
a_list,
(set(), set()))
@b.add_function()
def Xavier_Decoret_1(l):
return not decompose(l)[1]
@b.add_function()
def Xavier_Decoret_2(l):
try:
def func(s, o):
if o in s:
raise Exception
return s.union([o])
reduce(func, l, set())
return True
except:
return False
@b.add_function()
def pyrospade(xs):
s = set()
return any(x in s or s.add(x) for x in xs)
@b.add_function()
def Alex_Martelli_1(thelist):
return any(thelist.count(x) > 1 for x in thelist)
@b.add_function()
def Alex_Martelli_2(thelist):
seen = set()
for x in thelist:
if x in seen: return True
seen.add(x)
return False
@b.add_function()
def Denis_Otkidach(your_list):
return len(your_list) != len(set(your_list))
@b.add_function()
def MSeifert04(l):
return not all_distinct(l)
And for the arguments:
# No duplicate run
@b.add_arguments('list size')
def arguments():
for exp in range(2, 14):
size = 2**exp
yield size, list(range(size))
# Duplicate at beginning run
@b.add_arguments('list size')
def arguments():
for exp in range(2, 14):
size = 2**exp
yield size, [0, *list(range(size)]
# Running and plotting
r = b.run()
r.plot()
Another way of doing this succinctly is with Counter.
To just determine if there are any duplicates in the original list:
from collections import Counter
def has_dupes(l):
# second element of the tuple has number of repetitions
return Counter(l).most_common()[0][1] > 1
Or to get a list of items that have duplicates:
def get_dupes(l):
return [k for k, v in Counter(l).items() if v > 1]
my_list = ['one', 'two', 'one']
duplicates = []
for value in my_list:
if my_list.count(value) > 1:
if value not in duplicates:
duplicates.append(value)
print(duplicates) //["one"]
I found this to do the best performance because it short-circuit the operation when the first duplicated it found, then this algorithm has time and space complexity O(n) where n is the list's length:
def has_duplicated_elements(iterable):
""" Given an `iterable`, return True if there are duplicated entries. """
clean_elements_set = set()
clean_elements_set_add = clean_elements_set.add
for possible_duplicate_element in iterable:
if possible_duplicate_element in clean_elements_set:
return True
else:
clean_elements_set_add( possible_duplicate_element )
return False
If the list contains unhashable items, you can use Alex Martelli's solution but with a list instead of a set, though it's slower for larger inputs: O(N^2).
def has_duplicates(iterable):
seen = []
for x in iterable:
if x in seen:
return True
seen.append(x)
return False
I dont really know what set does behind the scenes, so I just like to keep it simple.
def dupes(num_list):
unique = []
dupes = []
for i in num_list:
if i not in unique:
unique.append(i)
else:
dupes.append(i)
if len(dupes) != 0:
return False
else:
return True
A more simple solution is as follows. Just check True/False with pandas .duplicated() method and then take sum. Please also see pandas.Series.duplicated — pandas 0.24.1 documentation
import pandas as pd
def has_duplicated(l):
return pd.Series(l).duplicated().sum() > 0
print(has_duplicated(['one', 'two', 'one']))
# True
print(has_duplicated(['one', 'two', 'three']))
# False
I used pyrospade's approach, for its simplicity, and modified that slightly on a short list made from the case-insensitive Windows registry.
If the raw PATH value string is split into individual paths all 'null' paths (empty or whitespace-only strings) can be removed by using:
PATH_nonulls = [s for s in PATH if s.strip()]
def HasDupes(aseq) :
s = set()
return any(((x.lower() in s) or s.add(x.lower())) for x in aseq)
def GetDupes(aseq) :
s = set()
return set(x for x in aseq if ((x.lower() in s) or s.add(x.lower())))
def DelDupes(aseq) :
seen = set()
return [x for x in aseq if (x.lower() not in seen) and (not seen.add(x.lower()))]
The original PATH has both 'null' entries and duplicates for testing purposes:
[list] Root paths in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment:PATH[list] Root paths in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment
1 C:\Python37\
2
3
4 C:\Python37\Scripts\
5 c:\python37\
6 C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q8
7 C:\Program Files (x86)\poppler\bin
8 D:\DATA\Sounds
9 C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin
10 C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\
11 C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\
12 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF
13 D:\DATA\CCMD
14 D:\DATA\UTIL
15 C:\
16 D:\DATA\UHELP
17 %SystemRoot%\system32
18
19
20 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF%SystemRoot%
21 D:\DATA\Sounds
22 %SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem
23 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF
24
25
26 c:\
27 %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
28
Null paths have been removed, but still has duplicates, e.g., (1, 3) and (13, 20):
[list] Null paths removed from HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment:PATH
1 C:\Python37\
2 C:\Python37\Scripts\
3 c:\python37\
4 C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q8
5 C:\Program Files (x86)\poppler\bin
6 D:\DATA\Sounds
7 C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin
8 C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\
9 C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\
10 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF
11 D:\DATA\CCMD
12 D:\DATA\UTIL
13 C:\
14 D:\DATA\UHELP
15 %SystemRoot%\system32
16 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF%SystemRoot%
17 D:\DATA\Sounds
18 %SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem
19 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF
20 c:\
21 %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
And finally, the dupes have been removed:
[list] Massaged path list from in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment:PATH
1 C:\Python37\
2 C:\Python37\Scripts\
3 C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q8
4 C:\Program Files (x86)\poppler\bin
5 D:\DATA\Sounds
6 C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin
7 C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\
8 C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\
9 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF
10 D:\DATA\CCMD
11 D:\DATA\UTIL
12 C:\
13 D:\DATA\UHELP
14 %SystemRoot%\system32
15 D:\DATA\CCMD\FF%SystemRoot%
16 %SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem
17 %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
def check_duplicates(my_list):
seen = {}
for item in my_list:
if seen.get(item):
return True
seen[item] = True
return False
Another solution is to use slicing, which will also work with strings and other enumerable things.
def has_duplicates(x):
for idx, item in enumerate(x):
if item in x[(idx + 1):]:
return True
return False
>>> has_duplicates(["a", "b", "c"])
False
>>> has_duplicates(["a", "b", "b", "c"])
True
>>> has_duplicates("abc")
False
>>> has_duplicates("abbc")
True
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