Find unique rows in numpy.array

Yet another possible solution

np.vstack({tuple(row) for row in a})

Edit: As others have mentioned this approach is deprecated as of NumPy 1.16. In modern versions you can do

np.vstack(tuple(set(map(tuple,a))))

Where map(tuple,a) makes every row of the matrix a hashable by making it them tuples. set(map(tuple,a)) creates a set out of all of these unique rows. Sets are non-sequence iterables and as such cannot be directly used to construct NumPy arrays anymore. The outer call to tuple fixes this problem by converting the set to a tuple, making it acceptable for creating an array.

Another option to the use of structured arrays is using a view of a void type that joins the whole row into a single item:

a = np.array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
              [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
              [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
              [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
              [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

b = np.ascontiguousarray(a).view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize * a.shape[1])))
_, idx = np.unique(b, return_index=True)

unique_a = a[idx]

>>> unique_a
array([[0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

EDIT Added np.ascontiguousarray following @seberg's recommendation. This will slow the method down if the array is not already contiguous.

EDIT The above can be slightly sped up, perhaps at the cost of clarity, by doing:

unique_a = np.unique(b).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])

Also, at least on my system, performance wise it is on par, or even better, than the lexsort method:

a = np.random.randint(2, size=(10000, 6))

%timeit np.unique(a.view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])
100 loops, best of 3: 3.17 ms per loop

%timeit ind = np.lexsort(a.T); a[np.concatenate(([True],np.any(a[ind[1:]]!=a[ind[:-1]],axis=1)))]
100 loops, best of 3: 5.93 ms per loop

a = np.random.randint(2, size=(10000, 100))

%timeit np.unique(a.view(np.dtype((np.void, a.dtype.itemsize*a.shape[1])))).view(a.dtype).reshape(-1, a.shape[1])
10 loops, best of 3: 29.9 ms per loop

%timeit ind = np.lexsort(a.T); a[np.concatenate(([True],np.any(a[ind[1:]]!=a[ind[:-1]],axis=1)))]
10 loops, best of 3: 116 ms per loop

If you want to avoid the memory expense of converting to a series of tuples or another similar data structure, you can exploit numpy's structured arrays.

The trick is to view your original array as a structured array where each item corresponds to a row of the original array. This doesn't make a copy, and is quite efficient.

As a quick example:

import numpy as np

data = np.array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
                 [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
                 [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
                 [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
                 [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

ncols = data.shape[1]
dtype = data.dtype.descr * ncols
struct = data.view(dtype)

uniq = np.unique(struct)
uniq = uniq.view(data.dtype).reshape(-1, ncols)
print uniq

To understand what's going on, have a look at the intermediary results.

Once we view things as a structured array, each element in the array is a row in your original array. (Basically, it's a similar data structure to a list of tuples.)

In [71]: struct
Out[71]:
array([[(1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)],
       [(0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0)],
       [(0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0)],
       [(1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)],
       [(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0)]],
      dtype=[('f0', '<i8'), ('f1', '<i8'), ('f2', '<i8'), ('f3', '<i8'), ('f4', '<i8'), ('f5', '<i8')])

In [72]: struct[0]
Out[72]:
array([(1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)],
      dtype=[('f0', '<i8'), ('f1', '<i8'), ('f2', '<i8'), ('f3', '<i8'), ('f4', '<i8'), ('f5', '<i8')])

Once we run numpy.unique, we'll get a structured array back:

In [73]: np.unique(struct)
Out[73]:
array([(0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0), (1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0), (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0)],
      dtype=[('f0', '<i8'), ('f1', '<i8'), ('f2', '<i8'), ('f3', '<i8'), ('f4', '<i8'), ('f5', '<i8')])

That we then need to view as a "normal" array (_ stores the result of the last calculation in ipython, which is why you're seeing _.view...):

In [74]: _.view(data.dtype)
Out[74]: array([0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0])

And then reshape back into a 2D array (-1 is a placeholder that tells numpy to calculate the correct number of rows, give the number of columns):

In [75]: _.reshape(-1, ncols)
Out[75]:
array([[0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])

Obviously, if you wanted to be more concise, you could write it as:

import numpy as np

def unique_rows(data):
    uniq = np.unique(data.view(data.dtype.descr * data.shape[1]))
    return uniq.view(data.dtype).reshape(-1, data.shape[1])

data = np.array([[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
                 [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
                 [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0],
                 [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],
                 [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0]])
print unique_rows(data)

Which results in:

[[0 1 1 1 0 0]
 [1 1 1 0 0 0]
 [1 1 1 1 1 0]]

np.unique when I run it on np.random.random(100).reshape(10,10) returns all the unique individual elements, but you want the unique rows, so first you need to put them into tuples:

array = #your numpy array of lists
new_array = [tuple(row) for row in array]
uniques = np.unique(new_array)

That is the only way I see you changing the types to do what you want, and I am not sure if the list iteration to change to tuples is okay with your "not looping through"