Question

quick and very basic newbie question.

If i have list of dictionaries looking like this:

L = []
L.append({"value1": value1, "value2": value2, "value3": value3, "value4": value4})

Let’s say there exists multiple entries where value3 and value4 are identical to other nested dictionaries. How can i quick and easy find and remove those duplicate dictionaries.

Preserving order is of no importance.

Thanks.

EDIT:

If there are five inputs, like this:

L = [{"value1": fssd, "value2": dsfds, "value3": abcd, "value4": gk},
    {"value1": asdasd, "value2": asdas, "value3": dafdd, "value4": sdfsdf},
    {"value1": sdfsf, "value2": sdfsdf, "value3": abcd, "value4": gk},
    {"value1": asddas, "value2": asdsa, "value3": abcd, "value4": gk},
    {"value1": asdasd, "value2": dskksks, "value3": ldlsld, "value4": sdlsld}]

The output shoud look like this:

L = [{"value1": fssd, "value2": dsfds, "value3": abcd, "value4": gk},
    {"value1": asdasd, "value2": asdas, "value3": dafdd, "value4": sdfsdf},
    {"value1": asdasd, "value2": dskksks, "value3": ldlsld, "value4": sdlsld}

Answer 1

In Python 2.6 or 3.*:

import itertools
import pprint

L = [{"value1": "fssd", "value2": "dsfds", "value3": "abcd", "value4": "gk"},
    {"value1": "asdasd", "value2": "asdas", "value3": "dafdd", "value4": "sdfsdf"},
    {"value1": "sdfsf", "value2": "sdfsdf", "value3": "abcd", "value4": "gk"},
    {"value1": "asddas", "value2": "asdsa", "value3": "abcd", "value4": "gk"},
    {"value1": "asdasd", "value2": "dskksks", "value3": "ldlsld", "value4": "sdlsld"}]

getvals = operator.itemgetter('value3', 'value4')

L.sort(key=getvals)

result = []
for k, g in itertools.groupby(L, getvals):
    result.append(next(g))

L[:] = result
pprint.pprint(L)

Almost the same in Python 2.5, except you have to use g.next() instead of next(g) in the append.