Array unique

[Michael Mior <[email protected]…>]

Why isn't there a function in jQuery like unique(), but for arrays? The function below is pulled from ​http://www.devcurry.com/2010/04/remove-duplicate-elements-from-array.html. Feel free to correct me if this is outside the scope of jQuery.

Array.prototype.unique = function () {
  var arrVal = this;
  var uniqueArr = [];
  for (var i = arrVal.length; i--; ) {
    var val = arrVal[i];
    if ($.inArray(val, uniqueArr) === -1) {
      uniqueArr.unshift(val);
    }
  }
  return uniqueArr;
}

[Rick Waldron]

Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the jQuery Project. jQuery already supports an array unique implementation:

​http://jsfiddle.net/rwaldron/9Rwpn/

[Rick Waldron]

One thing to keep in mind, since jQuery.unique() is intended to be used with array's of elements, it returns them in document order, which means normal arrays will be backwards.

Additionally, jQuery will not extend native/host objects, prototypes or constructors.

[Michael Mior <[email protected]…>]

Thanks for the rapid response (as well as the brief demo of jsFiddle usage). Re: your comment about backwards arrays, does this mean that I should reverse arrays after calling unique if I want them in the original order?

[Michael Mior <[email protected]…>]

Also, the documentation says explicitly states, "Note that this only works on arrays of DOM elements, not strings or numbers." Why is that?

[Rick Waldron]

Well, as you can see its a pain to have to reverse the array... Not sure why I didn't mention this previously, but for excellent implementations of functional utilities, I ALWAYS use ​Underscore.js

Example: ​http://jsfiddle.net/rwaldron/3ShLf/1/

Underscore is an awesome friend of jQuery.