How do I remove duplicates from a C# array?

Question

I have been working with a string[] array in C# that gets returned from a function call. I could possibly cast to a Generic collection, but I was w

Answer 1

The best way? Hard to say, the HashSet approach looks fast, but (depending on the data) using a sort algorithm (CountSort ?) can be much faster.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Random r = new Random(0); int[] a, b = new int[1000000];
        for (int i = b.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--) b[i] = r.Next(b.Length);
        a = new int[b.Length]; Array.Copy(b, a, b.Length);
        a = dedup0(a); Console.WriteLine(a.Length);
        a = new int[b.Length]; Array.Copy(b, a, b.Length);
        var w = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew();
        a = dedup0(a); Console.WriteLine(w.Elapsed); Console.Read();
    }

    static int[] dedup0(int[] a)  // 48 ms  
    {
        return new HashSet(a).ToArray();
    }

    static int[] dedup1(int[] a)  // 68 ms
    {
        Array.Sort(a); int i = 0, j = 1, k = a.Length; if (k < 2) return a;
        while (j < k) if (a[i] == a[j]) j++; else a[++i] = a[j++];
        Array.Resize(ref a, i + 1); return a;
    }

    static int[] dedup2(int[] a)  //  8 ms
    {
        var b = new byte[a.Length]; int c = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++) 
            if (b[a[i]] == 0) { b[a[i]] = 1; c++; }
        a = new int[c];
        for (int j = 0, i = 0; i < b.Length; i++) if (b[i] > 0) a[j++] = i;
        return a;
    }
}

Almost branch free. How? Debug mode, Step Into (F11) with a small array: {1,3,1,1,0}

    static int[] dedupf(int[] a)  //  4 ms
    {
        if (a.Length < 2) return a;
        var b = new byte[a.Length]; int c = 0, bi, ai, i, j;
        for (i = 0; i < a.Length; i++)
        { ai = a[i]; bi = 1 ^ b[ai]; b[ai] |= (byte)bi; c += bi; }
        a = new int[c]; i = 0; while (b[i] == 0) i++; a[0] = i++;
        for (j = 0; i < b.Length; i++) a[j += bi = b[i]] += bi * i; return a;
    }

A solution with two nested loops might take some time, especially for larger arrays.

    static int[] dedup(int[] a)
    {
        int i, j, k = a.Length - 1;
        for (i = 0; i < k; i++)
            for (j = i + 1; j <= k; j++) if (a[i] == a[j]) a[j--] = a[k--];
        Array.Resize(ref a, k + 1); return a;
    }