Removing duplicates from a String in Java

I am trying to iterate through a string in order to remove the duplicates characters.

For example the String aabbccdef should become abcdef and the String abcdabcd should become abcd

Here is what I have so far:

public class test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String input = new String("abbc");
        String output = new String();

        for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < output.length(); j++) {
                if (input.charAt(i) != output.charAt(j)) {
                    output = output + input.charAt(i);
                }
            }
        }

        System.out.println(output);

    }

}

What is the best way to do this?

Convert the string to an array of char, and store it in a LinkedHashSet. That will preserve your ordering, and remove duplicates. Something like:

String string = "aabbccdefatafaz";

char[] chars = string.toCharArray();
Set<Character> charSet = new LinkedHashSet<Character>();
for (char c : chars) {
    charSet.add(c);
}

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (Character character : charSet) {
    sb.append(character);
}
System.out.println(sb.toString());

Using Stream makes it easy.

noDuplicates = Arrays.asList(myString.split(""))
                     .stream()
                     .distinct()
                     .collect(Collectors.joining());

Here is some more documentation about Stream and all you can do with it : https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/stream/package-summary.html

The 'description' part is very instructive about the benefits of Streams.

Try this simple solution:

public String removeDuplicates(String input){
    String result = "";
    for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
        if(!result.contains(String.valueOf(input.charAt(i)))) {
            result += String.valueOf(input.charAt(i));
        }
    }
    return result;
}

I would use the help of LinkedHashSet. Removes dups (as we are using a Set, maintains the order as we are using linked list impl). This is kind of a dirty solution. there might be even a better way.

String s="aabbccdef";
Set<Character> set=new LinkedHashSet<Character>();
for(char c:s.toCharArray())
{
    set.add(Character.valueOf(c));
}

Create a StringWriter. Run through the original string using charAt(i) in a for loop. Maintain a variable of char type keeping the last charAt value. If you iterate and the charAt value equals what is stored in that variable, don't add to the StringWriter. Finally, use the StringWriter.toString() method and get a string, and do what you need with it.

Removing duplicates from a String in Java

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