Reputation: 1687

Find unique lines

How can I find the unique lines and remove all duplicates from a file? My input file is

I would like the result to be:

2
3

sort file | uniq will not do the job. Will show all values 1 time

Upvotes: 139

Answers (13)

dtbarne

Reputation: 8190

Short, foolproof way:

sort -u file

Upvotes: 1

Shiplu Mokaddim

Reputation: 57640

uniq -u < file

will do the job.

Upvotes: 6

kasavbere

Reputation: 6003

Use as follows:

sort < filea | uniq > fileb

Upvotes: 47

octocatsup

Reputation: 311

You could also print out the unique value in "file" using the cat command by piping to sort and uniq

cat file | sort | uniq -u

Upvotes: 31

Anant Mittal

Reputation: 2113

I find this easier.

sort -u input_filename > output_filename

-u stands for unique.

Upvotes: 22

hychou

Reputation: 632

While sort takes O(n log(n)) time, I prefer using

awk '!seen[$0]++'

awk '!seen[$0]++' is an abbreviation for awk '!seen[$0]++ {print}', print line(=$0) if seen[$0] is not zero. It take more space but only O(n) time.

Upvotes: 22

blacker

Reputation: 798

you can use:

sort data.txt| uniq -u

this sort data and filter by unique values

Upvotes: 14

a_rookie_seeking_answers

Reputation: 31

sort -d "file name" | uniq -u

this worked for me for a similar one. Use this if it is not arranged. You can remove sort if it is arranged

Upvotes: 3

user4401178

Reputation:

uniq should do fine if you're file is/can be sorted, if you can't sort the file for some reason you can use awk:

awk '{a[$0]++}END{for(i in a)if(a[i]<2)print i}'

Upvotes: 3

Rohit D

Reputation: 45

Instead of sorting and then using uniq, you could also just use sort -u. From sort --help:

  -u, --unique              with -c, check for strict ordering;
                            without -c, output only the first of an equal run

Upvotes: 0

ashmew2

Reputation: 327

uniq -u has been driving me crazy because it did not work.

So instead of that, if you have python (most Linux distros and servers already have it):

Assuming you have the data file in notUnique.txt

#Python
#Assuming file has data on different lines
#Otherwise fix split() accordingly.

uniqueData = []
fileData = open('notUnique.txt').read().split('\n')

for i in fileData:
  if i.strip()!='':
    uniqueData.append(i)

print uniqueData

###Another option (less keystrokes):
set(open('notUnique.txt').read().split('\n'))

Note that due to empty lines, the final set may contain '' or only-space strings. You can remove that later. Or just get away with copying from the terminal ;)

Just FYI, From the uniq Man page:

"Note: 'uniq' does not detect repeated lines unless they are adjacent. You may want to sort the input first, or use 'sort -u' without 'uniq'. Also, comparisons honor the rules specified by 'LC_COLLATE'."

One of the correct ways, to invoke with: # sort nonUnique.txt | uniq

Example run:

$ cat x
3
1
2
2
2
3
1
3

$ uniq x
3
1
2
3
1
3

$ uniq -u x
3
1
3
1
3

$ sort x | uniq
1
2
3

Spaces might be printed, so be prepared!

Upvotes: 11

amprantino

Reputation: 1687

This was the first i tried

skilla:~# uniq -u all.sorted  

76679787
76679787 
76794979
76794979 
76869286
76869286 
......

After doing a cat -e all.sorted

skilla:~# cat -e all.sorted 
$
76679787$
76679787 $
76701427$
76701427$
76794979$
76794979 $
76869286$
76869286 $

Every second line has a trailing space :( After removing all trailing spaces it worked!

thank you

Upvotes: 0

Lev Levitsky

Reputation: 65781

uniq has the option you need:

   -u, --unique
          only print unique lines

$ cat file.txt
1
1
2
3
5
5
7
7
$ uniq -u file.txt
2
3

Upvotes: 125