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)	(constexpr since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt > ForwardIt unique( ExecutionPolicy&& policy,                   ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last );	(2)	(since C++17)
template< class ForwardIt, class BinaryPred > ForwardIt unique( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, BinaryPred p );	(3)	(constexpr since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy,           class ForwardIt, class BinaryPred > ForwardIt unique( ExecutionPolicy&& policy,                   ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, BinaryPred p );	(4)	(since C++17)

Removes all except 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 end of the range.

1) Elements are compared using operator==.

If operator== does not establish an equivalence relation, the behavior is undefined.

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

If p does not establish an equivalence relation, the behavior is undefined.

2,4) Same as (1,3), but executed according to policy.

These overloads participate in overload resolution only if

std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true.	(until C++20)
std::is_execution_policy_v<std::remove_cvref_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true.	(since C++20)

Explanation

Removing is done by shifting the elements in the range in such a way that the elements that are not to be removed appear in the beginning of the range.

• Shifting is done by copy assignment(until C++11)move assignment(since C++11).
• The removing operation is stable: the relative order of the elements not to be removed stays the same.
• The underlying sequence of [first, last) is not shortened by the removing operation. Given result as the returned iterator:

• All iterators in [result, last) are still dereferenceable.

Each element of [result, last) has a valid but unspecified state, because move assignment can eliminate elements by moving from elements that were originally in that range.

(since C++11)

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
- ForwardIt must meet the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.
- The type of dereferenced ForwardIt must meet the requirements of MoveAssignable.

Return value

A ForwardIt to the new end of the range.

Complexity

Given \(\scriptsize N\)N as std::distance(first, last):

1,2) Exactly \(\scriptsize max(0,N-1)\)max(0,N-1) comparisons using operator==.

3,4) Exactly \(\scriptsize max(0,N-1)\)max(0,N-1) applications of the predicate p.

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

See also the implementations in libstdc++, libc++, and MSVC STL.

unique (1)
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; }
unique (3)
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; }

Notes

A call to unique is typically followed by a call to a container's erase member function to actually remove elements from the container.

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
 
int main()
{
    // a vector containing several duplicate elements
    std::vector<int> v{1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 4};
    auto print = [&](int id)
    {
        std::cout << "@" << id << ": ";
        for (int i : v)
            std::cout << i << ' ';
        std::cout << '\n';
    };
    print(1);
 
    // remove consecutive (adjacent) duplicates
    auto last = std::unique(v.begin(), v.end());
    // v now holds {1 2 1 3 4 5 4 x x x}, where 'x' is indeterminate
    v.erase(last, v.end());
    print(2);
 
    // sort followed by unique, to remove all duplicates
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end()); // {1 1 2 3 4 4 5}
    print(3);
 
    last = std::unique(v.begin(), v.end());
    // v now holds {1 2 3 4 5 x x}, where 'x' is indeterminate
    v.erase(last, v.end());
    print(4);
}

Output:

@1: 1 2 1 1 3 3 3 4 5 4
@2: 1 2 1 3 4 5 4
@3: 1 1 2 3 4 4 5
@4: 1 2 3 4 5

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

DR	Applied to	Behavior as published	Correct behavior
LWG 202	C++98	the behavior was unclear if the elements are compared using a non-equivalence relation	the behavior is undefined in this case

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>)
unique	removes consecutive duplicate elements (public member function of std::forward_list<T,Allocator>)
ranges::unique (C++20)	removes consecutive duplicate elements in a range (niebloid)