How in Scala to find unique items in List

If you refer to the Rosetta Code: Create a Sequence of unique elements

val list = List(1,2,3,4,2,3,4,99)
val l2 = list.removeDuplicates
// l2: scala.List[scala.Int] = List(1,2,3,4,99)

Since List is immutable, you wont modify the initial List by calling removeDuplicates

Warning: as mentioned by this tweet(!), this does not preserve the order:

scala> val list = List(2,1,2,4,2,9,3)
list: List[Int] = List(2, 1, 2, 4, 2, 9, 3)


scala> val l2 = list.removeDuplicates
l2: List[Int] = List(1, 4, 2, 9, 3)

For a Seq, that method should be available in Scala2.8, according to ticket 929.
In the meantime, you will need to define an ad-hoc static method as the one seen here

A simple ad-hoc method is just to add the List to a Set, and use from there:

  val l = List(1,2,3,3,3,4,5,5,6,7,8,8,8,9,9)
val s = Set() ++ x
println(s)

Produces:

> Set(5, 1, 6, 9, 2, 7, 3, 8, 4)

This works for a Seq (or any Iterable), but is not necessary in 2.8, where the removeDuplicates method will probably be more readable. Also, not sure about the runtime performance vs a more thought-out conversion.

Also, note the lost ordering.

Roll your own uniq filter with order retention:

scala> val l = List(1,2,3,3,4,6,5,6)
l: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 5, 6)


scala> l.foldLeft(Nil: List[Int]) {(acc, next) => if (acc contains next) acc else next :: acc }.reverse
res0: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5)

The most efficient order-preserving way of doing this would be to use a Set as an ancillary data structure:

def unique[A](ls: List[A]) = {
def loop(set: Set[A], ls: List[A]): List[A] = ls match {
case hd :: tail if set contains hd => loop(set, tail)
case hd :: tail => hd :: loop(set + hd, tail)
case Nil => Nil
}


loop(Set(), ls)
}

We can wrap this in some nicer syntax using an implicit conversion:

implicit def listToSyntax[A](ls: List[A]) = new {
def unique = unique(ls)
}


List(1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4).unique    // => List(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

In 2.8, it's:

List(1,2,3,2,1).distinct  // => List(1, 2, 3)

Imho, all the interpretations of the question are false:

How in Scala to find unique items in List?

Given this list:

val ili = List (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 1, 1, 4, 1)

the only unique item in the list is 2. The other items aren't unique.

ili.toSet.filter (i => ili.indexOf (i) == ili.lastIndexOf (i))

will find it.

list.filter { x => list.count(_ == x) == 1 }

list.toSet will do it since Set by definition only contains unique elements