Suppose that I have a multimap (which maps multiple values to a single key), and then I decide that I need to remove all but the first/last/predicate-matching value for all keys. After this operation, I have a traditional map (which maps a single value to a single key).
Is there a word that describes this operation? The best I’ve come up with is “remove-duplicates”, but it doesn’t feel right. “filter” feels too generic. “trim” is a string operation. “compact” / “compress” carry the wrong connotations (i.e. reversibility).
EDIT: I eventually went with “Collapse” based on the idea that multimap[i] is (y1, y2, ... yn) which describes a curve, and that I wanted to “collapse the curve to a single point” using a “priority function” to select the first element. I hope that makes sense.
how about pruning?
your best weapon for terminology might be http://www.thesaurus.com