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Remove duplicates without using list mutation

I am trying to remove adjacent duplicates from a list without using list mutations like del or remove. Below is the code I tried:
def remove_dups(L):
L = [x for x in range(0,len(L)) if L[x] != L[x-1]]
return L
print(remove_dups([1,2,2,3,3,3,4,5,1,1,1]))
This outputs:
[1, 3, 6, 7, 8]
Can anyone explain me how this output occurred? I want to understand the flow but I wasn't able to do it even with debugging in VS code.
Input:
[1,2,2,3,3,3,4,5,1,1,1]
Expected output:
[1,2,3,4,5,1]

I'll replace the variables to make this more readable
def remove_dups(L):
L = [x for x in range(0,len(L)) if L[x] != L[x-1]]
becomes:
def remove_dups(lst):
return [index for index in range(len(lst)) if lst[index] != lst[index-1]]
You can see, instead of looping over the items of the list it is instead looping over the indices of the array comparing the value at one index lst[index] to the value at the previous index lst[index-1] and only migrating/copying the value if they don't match
The two main issues are:
the first index it is compared to is -1 which is the last item of the list (compared to the first)
this is actually returning the indices of the non-duplicated items.
To make this work, I'd use the enumerate function which returns the item and it's index as follows:
def remove_dups(lst):
return [item for index, item in enumerate(lst[:-1]) if item != lst[index+1]] + [lst[-1]]
Here what I'm doing is looping through all of the items except for the last one [:-1] and checking if the item matches the next item, only adding it if it doesn't
Finally, because the last value isn't read we append it to the output + [lst[-1]].

This is a job for itertools.groupby:
from itertools import groupby
def remove_dups(L):
return [k for k,g in groupby(L)]
L2 = remove_dups([1,2,2,3,3,3,4,5,1,1,1])
Output: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1]

How to multiply two sublists within the same list?

I am new to python and SO. I want to multiply each element of lists in a list of lists to another list lying in the same list of lists and compare it with a reference value. This will be more clear with an example:
for L = [[1,2,3,4,5,10],[3,2,4,1,5,10]] ##there can be more than 2 lists in this list of lists
I want only those pairs whose product results in 10.
Out: L = [[1,10],[2,5]]
Edit: I prefer a method without any imports, since I am doing this for building logic and my editor doesn't contain any modules to import. Also, if there are more than 2 lists in a list of lists For eg. there are 3 Lists in a list of lists: then I want triplets for that sake. ANd if 4 lists then I need quadruples.
Here's my code attempt as requested.
N = []
J = []
F = []
Z = []
S = []
O = []
num = input("Enter no. of elements in list")
print ('Enter numbers')
prod = 1
for i in range(int(num)):
n = input("num :")
N.append(int(n))
for x in N:
prod = prod*x
print (prod)
k = int(input("Enter no. of splits:"))
##d = [[] for x in xrange(k)]
##var_dict = []
for o in range(1,prod+1):
if prod%o == 0:
J.append(o)
print (J)
for g in range(k):
O.append(J*(k-1))
print (O)
for a in range(len(O)):
for b in range(len(O)):
if O[i]*O[i+1] == prod:
Z.extend(O)
##Z = [[a, b] for a in J for b in F if a*b == prod] ##imp
print (Z)
for e in Z:
if e not in S and sorted(e) not in S:
S.append(e)
print (S)

You can use itertools.product to find groups of numbers and filter them based on their product
>>> from itertools import product
>>> from functools import reduce
>>> lst = [[1,2,3,4,5,10],[3,2,4,1,5,10]]
>>> ans = [p for p in product(*lst) if reduce(lambda x,y:x*y, p) == 10]
>>> # Remove duplicates
>>> ans = list(map(list, set(map(frozenset, ans))))
>>> print (ans)
[[1, 10], [2, 5]]
>>>

In a comment you say you say you want code without any imports. Importing product from itertools and reduce do simplify and speed the code, but the job can be done without imports. Here is a recursive solution. I am not quite satisfied with this code but it seems to work and passes all my tests. I generalized the problem somewhat so that the input can have tuples or other sequences and not just lists.
def prod_is_target(seq_of_seqs, target):
"""Return a list of lists, where each sublist contains one member
of each input subsequence in order, and the product of those
members equals the target value. If there is no such list possible,
return None. If seq_of_seqs is empty, return an empty list if the
target is 1 and return None otherwise.
"""
if not seq_of_seqs: # if is empty sequence
return [] if target == 1 else None
result = []
for val in seq_of_seqs[0]:
if target % val: # skip if target is not a multiple of val
continue
prodlists = prod_is_target(seq_of_seqs[1:], target // val)
if prodlists is None: # skip if failed with later sublists
continue
if not prodlists: # if is empty list
result.append([val])
else:
for prodlist in prodlists:
result.append([val] + prodlist)
return result if result else None
print(prod_is_target([[1,2,3,4,5,10], [3,2,4,1,5,10]], 10))
The printout from that code is
[[1, 10], [2, 5], [5, 2], [10, 1]]
I'll leave it to you to remove what you consider to be duplicates. I can think of situations where you would want this full list, however.

Python multiple loops

A = [[[1,2,3],[4]],[[1,4],[2,3]]]
Here I want to find lists in A which sum of all sublists in list not grater than 5.
Which the result should be [[1,4],[2,3]]
I tried a long time to solve this problem in python. But I still can't figure out the right solution, which I stuck at loop out multiple loops. My code as follows, but its obviously wrong, how to correct it?
A = [[[1,2,3],[4]],[[1,4],[2,3]]]
z = []
for l in A:
for list in l:
sum = 0
while sum < 5:
for i in list:
sum+=i
else:
break
else:
z.append(l)
print z
Asking for help~

Simplification of #KindStranger method in a one-liner:
>> [sub for x in A for sub in x if max(sum(sub) for sub in x) <= 5]
[[1, 4], [2, 3]]

A simple solution which you can think of would be like this -
A = [[[1,2,3],[4]],[[1,4],[2,3]]]
r = [] # this will be our result
for list in A: # Iterate through each item in A
f = True # This is a flag we set for a favorable sublist
for item in list: # Here we iterate through each list in the sublist
if sum(item) > 5: # If the sum is greater than 5 in any of them, set flag to false
f = False
if f: # If the flag is set, it means this is a favorable sublist
r.append(list)
print r
But I'm assuming the nesting level would be the same. http://ideone.com/hhr9uq

This should work for your problem:
>>> for alist in A:
... if max(sum(sublist) for sublist in alist) <= 5:
... print(alist)
...
[[1, 4], [2, 3]]

The one with all()
[t for item in A for t in item if all(sum(t)<=5 for t in item)]

How to find second smallest UNIQUE number in a list?

I need to create a function that returns the second smallest unique number, which means if
list1 = [5,4,3,2,2,1], I need to return 3, because 2 is not unique.
I've tried:
def second(list1):
result = sorted(list1)[1]
return result
and
def second(list1):
result = list(set((list1)))
return result
but they all return 2.
EDIT1:
Thanks guys! I got it working using this final code:
def second(list1):
b = [i for i in list1 if list1.count(i) == 1]
b.sort()
result = sorted(b)[1]
return result
EDIT 2:
Okay guys... really confused. My Prof just told me that if list1 = [1,1,2,3,4], it should return 2 because 2 is still the second smallest number, and if list1 = [1,2,2,3,4], it should return 3.
Code in eidt1 wont work if list1 = [1,1,2,3,4].
I think I need to do something like:
if duplicate number in position list1[0], then remove all duplicates and return second number.
Else if duplicate number postion not in list1[0], then just use the code in EDIT1.

Without using anything fancy, why not just get a list of uniques, sort it, and get the second list item?
a = [5,4,3,2,2,1] #second smallest is 3
b = [i for i in a if a.count(i) == 1]
b.sort()
>>>b[1]
3
a = [5,4,4,3,3,2,2,1] #second smallest is 5
b = [i for i in a if a.count(i) == 1]
b.sort()
>>> b[1]
5
Obviously you should test that your list has at least two unique numbers in it. In other words, make sure b has a length of at least 2.

Remove non unique elements - use sort/itertools.groupby or collections.Counter
Use min - O(n) to determine the minimum instead of sort - O(nlongn). (In any case if you are using groupby the data is already sorted) I missed the fact that OP wanted the second minimum, so sorting is still a better option here
Sample Code
Using Counter
>>> sorted(k for k, v in Counter(list1).items() if v == 1)[1]
1
Using Itertools
>>> sorted(k for k, g in groupby(sorted(list1)) if len(list(g)) == 1)[1]
3

Here's a fancier approach that doesn't use count (which means it should have significantly better performance on large datasets).
from collections import defaultdict
def getUnique(data):
dd = defaultdict(lambda: 0)
for value in data:
dd[value] += 1
result = [key for key in dd.keys() if dd[key] == 1]
result.sort()
return result
a = [5,4,3,2,2,1]
b = getUnique(a)
print(b)
# [1, 3, 4, 5]
print(b[1])
# 3

Okay guys! I got the working code thanks to all your help and helping me to think on the right track. This code works:
`def second(list1):
if len(list1)!= len(set(list1)):
result = sorted(list1)[2]
return result
elif len(list1) == len(set(list1)):
result = sorted(list1)[1]
return result`

Okay, here usage of set() on a list is not going to help. It doesn't purge the duplicated elements. What I mean is :
l1=[5,4,3,2,2,1]
print set(l1)
Prints
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Here, you're not removing the duplicated elements, but the list gets unique
In your example you want to remove all duplicated elements.
Try something like this.
l1=[5,4,3,2,2,1]
newlist=[]
for i in l1:
if l1.count(i)==1:
newlist.append(i)
print newlist
This in this example prints
[5, 4, 3, 1]
then you can use heapq to get your second largest number in your list, like this
print heapq.nsmallest(2, newlist)[-1]
Imports : import heapq, The above snippet prints 3 for you.
This should to the trick. Cheers!

Comparing two lists and only printing the differences? (XORing two lists)

I'm trying to create a function that takes in 2 lists and returns the list that only has the differences of the two lists.
Example:
a = [1,2,5,7,9]
b = [1,2,4,8,9]
The result should print [4,5,7,8]
The function so far:
def xor(list1, list2):
list3=list1+list2
for i in range(0, len(list3)):
x=list3[i]
y=i
while y>0 and x<list3[y-1]:
list3[y]=list3[y-1]
y=y-1
list3[y]=x
last=list3[-1]
for i in range(len(list3) -2, -1, -1):
if last==list3[i]:
del list3[i]
else:
last=list3[i]
return list3
print xor([1,2,5,7,8],[1,2,4,8,9])
The first for loop sorts it, second one removes the duplicates. Problem is the result is
[1,2,4,5,7,8,9] not [4,5,7,8], so it doesn't completely remove the duplicates? What can I add to do this.
I can't use any special modules, .sort, set or anything, just loops basically.

You basically want to add an element to your new list if it is present in one and not present in another. Here is a compact loop which can do it. For each element in the two lists (concatenate them with list1+list2), we add element if it is not present in one of them:
[a for a in list1+list2 if (a not in list1) or (a not in list2)]
You can easily transform it into a more unPythonic code with explicit looping through elements as you have now, but honestly I don't see a point (not that it matters):
def xor(list1, list2):
outputlist = []
list3 = list1 + list2
for i in range(0, len(list3)):
if ((list3[i] not in list1) or (list3[i] not in list2)) and (list3[i] not in outputlist):
outputlist[len(outputlist):] = [list3[i]]
return outputlist

Use set is better
>>> a = [1,2,5,7,9]
>>> b = [1,2,4,8,9]
>>> set(a).symmetric_difference(b)
{4, 5, 7, 8}
Thanks to #DSM, a better sentence is:
>>> set(a)^set(b)
These two statements are the same. But the latter is clearer.
Update: sorry, I did not see the last requirement: cannot use set. As far as I see, the solution provided by #sashkello is the best.

Note: This is really unpythonic and should only be used as a homework answer :)
After you have sorted both lists, you can find duplicates by doing the following:
1) Place iterators at the start of A and B
2) If Aitr is greater than Bitr, advance Bitr after placing Bitr's value in the return list
3) Else if Bitr is greater than Aitr, advance Aiter after placing Aitr's value in the return list
4) Else you have found a duplicate, advance Aitr and Bitr

This code works assuming you've got sorted lists. It works in linear time, rather than quadratic like many of the other solutions given.
def diff(sl0, sl1):
i0, i1 = 0, 0
while i0 < len(sl0) and i1 < len(sl1):
if sl0[i0] == sl1[i1]:
i0 += 1
i1 += 1
elif sl0[i0] < sl1[i1]:
yield sl0[i0]
i0 += 1
else:
yield sl1[i1]
i1 += 1
for i in xrange(i0, len(sl0)):
yield sl0[i]
for i in xrange(i1, len(sl1)):
yield sl1[i]
print list(diff([1,2,5,7,9], [1,2,4,8,9]))

Try this,
a = [1,2,5,7,9]
b = [1,2,4,8,9]
print set(a).symmetric_difference(set(b))

Simple, but not particularly efficient :)
>>> a = [1,2,5,7,9]
>>> b = [1,2,4,8,9]
>>> [i for i in a+b if (a+b).count(i)==1]
[5, 7, 4, 8]
Or with "just loops"
>>> res = []
>>> for i in a+b:
... c = 0
... for j in a+b:
... if i==j:
... c += 1
... if c == 1:
... res.append(i)
...
>>> res
[5, 7, 4, 8]