findduplicates

Find linear indices of duplicate elements in input.

findduplicates, find linear indices of duplicates in input
This function accepts the same input arguments as the unique function, which is the basis for this function.

Syntax

[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A)
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, setOrder)
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, occurence)
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, _, 'rows')
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, 'rows', _)
[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(_)

[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(A, 'legacy')
[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(A, 'rows', 'legacy')
[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(A, occurrence, 'legacy')
[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(A, 'rows', occurrence, 'legacy')
[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(A, occurrence, 'rows', 'legacy')

Description

[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A) finds the linear indices of duplicates in input A. The accepted input arguments are the same as accepted by the unique function. The first output, i1, contains the linear indices of the first duplicate elements into A that correspond to the duplicates indexed by i2, the second output. i1 may contain the same index multiple times if an element exists more than twice in A. If no duplicates exist, i1 and i2 are returned empty.

[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, setOrder) supports the 'sorted' (default) or 'stable' flags of the unique function, but have no effect to find duplicates.

[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, occurence) specifies which duplicate to consider as the first, occurence can be 'first' (default) or 'last'.

[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, _, 'rows') and [i1, i2] = findduplicates(A, 'rows', _) treat each row of A as a single entity and returns indices of duplicate rows. You must specify A and optionally can specify setOrder or occurence. The 'rows' option does not support cell arrays.

[i1, i2, C, ia, ic] = findduplicates(_) also returns C, ia and ic such that [C, ia, ic] = unique(_). See the documentation for unique for their meaning and use.

The syntaxes with the 'legacy' option preserve the behaviour this function would have on R2012b and prior releases. The 'legacy' option must be the last input argument. It does not support categorical arrays, datetime arrays, duration arrays, tables or timetables.

Examples

Find the first indices of duplicates and the other duplicates' indices:

A = [9, 2, 9, 5]
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(A)

Result

A =
9 2 9 5
i1 =
1
i2 =
3

This indicates that the first element in A has a duplicate at the third element.

Find the last indices of duplicate character arrays and the other duplicates' indices:

names = {'Charlie', 'Alice', 'Bob', 'Alice', 'Alice', 'Charlie'};
[i1, i2] = findduplicates(names, 'last')

Result

i1 =
6
5
5

i2 =
1
2
4

This indicates that the character arrays at indices 6 and 5 have duplicates, 5 having two duplicates. The duplicate for index 6 is at index 1, the duplicates for index 5 are at indices 2 and 4.

More examples

Run findduplicatesdemo for more examples of findduplicates based on the examples of the unique function. See the contents of findduplicatesdemo.m for details.

Notes

NaN are considered as distinct values by the unique function, thus they are considered non-duplicates by findduplicates as well.

Licence

GNU GPLv3