Removing array duplicates in ES6

Removing array duplicates in ES6

Here are 4 ways to filter out duplicates from an array and return only the unique values.

1. Set

Set is one of the cool thing happening in ES6. It's a new data structure that store unique values of any type. You can iterate through the elements of a set in insertion order. A value in the Set may only occur once; it is unique in the Set's collection.

Set

const array = ['🦄', 1, 2, '🦄', '🦄', 3, 2]
[...new Set(array)]

// ['🦄', 1, 2, 3];

2. Filter

The filter() method creates a new array with all elements that pass the test implemented by the provided function.

Filter

const array = ['🦄', 1, 2, '🦄', '🦄', 3, 2]
array.filter((item, index) => array.indexOf(item) === index)

// ['🦄', 1, 2, 3];

3. Reduce

In order to understand this option, let's understand what these two methods are doing: reduce and includes.
  • The reduce() method executes a reducer function (that you provide) on each member of the array resulting in a single output value.
  • The includes() method determines whether an array includes a certain value among its entries, returning true or false as appropriate.

Reduce

const array = ['🦄', 1, 2, '🦄', '🦄', 3, 2]
array.reduce((unique, item) => (unique.includes(item) ? unique : [...unique, item]), [])

// ['🦄', 1, 2, 3];

4. lodash

lodash

const array = ['🦄', 1, 2, '🦄', '🦄', 3, 2]
_.uniq(array)

// ['🦄', 1, 2, 3];
Do not forget: The bundle size for lodash@4.17.11 is 24.2kB (minified + gzipped). See here