Remove duplicates from a vector of structs

Question

Say I have a structure with two members, name and date, and a vector of the structure declared. I'm tryna get rid of all duplicate objects in which the name member is not unique, and keep only one. What's the simplest way to solve this problem?

Answer 1

You can copy your vector to a set, which automatically removes duplicates during the initialization process, and then copy your set's contents back to the vector. Note that if you want this to work your way, you will have to provide an overload for the == operator in your class.

Or you can use the erase() function combined with unique(), which requires the vector to be sorted though.

www.cplusplus.com/reference/algorithm/unique

Answer 2

Moses Odhiambo is vector (which is input ) in your control?

if yes, use map with name as key to avoid duplicate value as input itself....

if it is not in your control, iterator through vector elements and for each element , compare name with entire vector name...if match is found, erase current elemnt from vector..

Answer 3

Ketan Lalcheta So what happens when you try to add a duplicate value as the key? (in a map)

Answer 4

Moses Odhiambo it override previous value

Answer 5

Moses Odhiambo if input is in your control, take a look at below sample code for whatever I described for map:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#include<map>

int main()
{

map<string,int> MyMap;

MyMap["abc"] = 1;

cout << MyMap.begin()->second << endl; // prints 1

MyMap["abc"] = 10;

cout << MyMap.begin()->second; // prints 10

return 0;
}