Removing duplicate objects with Underscore for Javascript

Solution 1:

.uniq/.unique accepts a callback

var list = [{a:1,b:5},{a:1,c:5},{a:2},{a:3},{a:4},{a:3},{a:2}];

var uniqueList = _.uniq(list, function(item, key, a) { 
    return item.a;
});

// uniqueList = [Object {a=1, b=5}, Object {a=2}, Object {a=3}, Object {a=4}]

Notes:

1. Callback return value used for comparison
2. First comparison object with unique return value used as unique
3. underscorejs.org demonstrates no callback usage
4. lodash.com shows usage

Another example : using the callback to extract car makes, colors from a list

Solution 2:

If you're looking to remove duplicates based on an id you could do something like this:

var res = [
  {id: 1, content: 'heeey'},
  {id: 2, content: 'woah'}, 
  {id: 1, content:'foo'},
  {id: 1, content: 'heeey'},
];
var uniques = _.map(_.groupBy(res,function(doc){
  return doc.id;
}),function(grouped){
  return grouped[0];
});

//uniques
//[{id: 1, content: 'heeey'},{id: 2, content: 'woah'}]

Solution 3:

Implementation of Shiplu's answer.

var foo = [ { "a" : "1" }, { "b" : "2" }, { "a" : "1" } ];

var x = _.uniq( _.collect( foo, function( x ){
    return JSON.stringify( x );
}));

console.log( x ); // returns [ { "a" : "1" }, { "b" : "2" } ]

Solution 4:

When I have an attribute id, this is my preffered way in underscore:

var x = [{i:2}, {i:2, x:42}, {i:4}, {i:3}];
_.chain(x).indexBy("i").values().value();
// > [{i:2, x:42}, {i:4}, {i:3}]

Solution 5:

Using underscore unique lib following is working for me, I m making list unique on the based of _id then returning String value of _id:

var uniqueEntities = _.uniq(entities, function (item, key, a) {
                                    return item._id.toString();
                                });