std::unique

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution support library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Algorithm library

Constrained algorithms and algorithms on ranges (C++20)
Constrained algorithms, e.g. ranges::copy, ranges::sort, ...
Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy (C++17)   execution::seqexecution::parexecution::par_unseqexecution::unseq (C++17)    (C++17)(C++17)(C++20)	execution::sequenced_policyexecution::parallel_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced (C++17)(C++17)(C++17)(C++20)
Non-modifying sequence operations Batch operations for_each for_each_n (C++17) Search operations all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)                (C++11)(C++11) countcount_if mismatch equal findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of adjacent_find search search_n Modifying sequence operations Copy operations copycopy_if (C++11) copy_backward copy_n (C++11) move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) Swap operations swap iter_swap swap_ranges Transformation operations replacereplace_if transform replace_copyreplace_copy_if Generation operations fill fill_n generate generate_n Removing operations removeremove_if unique remove_copyremove_copy_if unique_copy Order-changing operations reverse reverse_copy rotate rotate_copy random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11) shift_leftshift_right (C++20)(C++20) Sampling operations sample (C++17)	Sorting and related operations Partitioning operations partition partition_copy (C++11)   stable_partition is_partitioned (C++11) partition_point (C++11) Sorting operations sort stable_sort partial_sort partial_sort_copy is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11) nth_element Binary search operations (on partitioned ranges) lower_bound upper_bound equal_range binary_search Set operations (on sorted ranges) includes set_union set_intersection set_difference set_symmetric_difference Merge operations (on sorted ranges) merge inplace_merge Heap operations push_heap pop_heap make_heap sort_heap is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11) Minimum/maximum operations max min minmax (C++11) clamp (C++17) max_element min_element minmax_element (C++11) Lexicographical comparison operations lexicographical_compare lexicographical_compare_three_way (C++20) Permutation operations next_permutation prev_permutation is_permutation (C++11) C library qsort bsearch
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) inner_product adjacent_difference    accumulate reduce (C++17) transform_reduce (C++17)	partial_sum inclusive_scan (C++17)    exclusive_scan (C++17) transform_inclusive_scan (C++17) transform_exclusive_scan (C++17)
Operations on uninitialized memory
uninitialized_copy uninitialized_move (C++17)    uninitialized_fill uninitialized_copy_n (C++11) uninitialized_move_n (C++17) uninitialized_fill_n	destroy (C++17) destroy_n (C++17) destroy_at (C++17) construct_at (C++20)       uninitialized_default_construct (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct (C++17) uninitialized_default_construct_n (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct_n (C++17)

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
template< class ForwardIt > ForwardIt unique( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last );	(1)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt > ForwardIt unique( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last );	(2)	(since C++17)
template< class ForwardIt, class BinaryPredicate > ForwardIt unique( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, BinaryPredicate p );	(3)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt, class BinaryPredicate > ForwardIt unique( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, BinaryPredicate p );	(4)	(since C++17)

Eliminates all but the first element from every consecutive group of equivalent elements from the range [first, last) and returns a past-the-end iterator for the new logical end of the range.

Removing is done by shifting the elements in the range in such a way that elements to be erased are overwritten. Relative order of the elements that remain is preserved and the physical size of the container is unchanged. Iterators pointing to an element between the new logical end and the physical end of the range are still dereferenceable, but the elements themselves have unspecified values. A call to unique is typically followed by a call to a container's erase method, which erases the unspecified values and reduces the physical size of the container to match its new logical size.

1) Elements are compared using operator==.

3) Elements are compared using the given binary predicate p.

2,4) Same as (1,3), but executed according to policy. These overloads do not participate in overload resolution unless std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to process
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
p	-	binary predicate which returns ​true if the elements should be treated as equal. The signature of the predicate function should be equivalent to the following:  bool pred(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); While the signature does not need to have const &, the function must not modify the objects passed to it and must be able to accept all values of type (possibly const) Type1 and Type2 regardless of value category (thus, Type1 & is not allowed, nor is Type1 unless for Type1 a move is equivalent to a copy(since C++11)). The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type ForwardIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both of them. ​
Type requirements

Return value

Forward iterator to the new end of the range

Complexity

For nonempty ranges, exactly std::distance(first,last) -1 applications of the corresponding predicate.

Exceptions

The overloads with a template parameter named ExecutionPolicy report errors as follows:

• If execution of a function invoked as part of the algorithm throws an exception and ExecutionPolicy is one of the standard policies, std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy, the behavior is implementation-defined.
• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Possible implementation

First version
template<class ForwardIt> ForwardIt unique(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last) { if (first == last) return last;   ForwardIt result = first; while (++first != last) { if (!(*result == *first) && ++result != first) { *result = std::move(*first); } } return ++result; }
Second version
template<class ForwardIt, class BinaryPredicate> ForwardIt unique(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, BinaryPredicate p) { if (first == last) return last;   ForwardIt result = first; while (++first != last) { if (!p(*result, *first) && ++result != first) { *result = std::move(*first); } } return ++result; }

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <cctype>
 
int main() 
{
    // remove duplicate elements (normal use)
    std::vector<int> v{1,2,3,1,2,3,3,4,5,4,5,6,7};
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end()); // 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 
    auto last = std::unique(v.begin(), v.end());
    // v now holds {1 2 3 4 5 6 7 x x x x x x}, where 'x' is indeterminate
    v.erase(last, v.end()); 
    for (int i : v)
      std::cout << i << " ";
    std::cout << "\n";
 
    // remove consecutive spaces
    std::string s = "wanna go    to      space?";
    auto end = std::unique(s.begin(), s.end(), [](char l, char r){
        return std::isspace(l) && std::isspace(r) && l == r;
    });
    // s now holds "wanna go to space?xxxxxxxx", where 'x' is indeterminate
    std::cout << std::string(s.begin(), end) << '\n';
}

Output:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
wanna go to space?

See also

adjacent_find	finds the first two adjacent items that are equal (or satisfy a given predicate) (function template)
unique_copy	creates a copy of some range of elements that contains no consecutive duplicates (function template)
removeremove_if	removes elements satisfying specific criteria (function template)
unique	removes consecutive duplicate elements (public member function of std::list<T,Allocator>)