Is there a way to prevent duplicate table elements by checking certain properties of said element?

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#1

Hello developers, I’m asking if there’s a way to prevent duplicate table elements by checking a set list of properties saved per element.

Currently, when I try to save my data to it, if the data is already loaded then it is effectively duplicated since I can’t figure out how to check if the data is the same through a set list of the saved properties for that element.

Any help with this is massively appreciated,
Thanks, MBroNetwork.

#2

Generated by ChatGPT:

Yes, you can prevent duplicate table elements by checking certain properties of each element. One way to do this is to create a temporary table that holds the unique properties you want to check for. For example, if you have a table of objects and you want to check if there are duplicates based on their “name” and “age” properties, you can create a temporary table that holds unique name and age combinations, and check if an object’s name and age combination is already in the table before adding it to the original table. Here’s an example code snippet:

-- example table of objects
local objects = {
    {name = "John", age = 20},
    {name = "Mary", age = 25},
    {name = "John", age = 20}, -- duplicate
    {name = "David", age = 30},
}

-- temporary table to hold unique name and age combinations
local unique = {}

-- loop through each object and add to original table if unique
for i, obj in ipairs(objects) do
    local key = obj.name .. obj.age -- create unique key using name and age
    if not unique[key] then
        unique[key] = true
        table.insert(objects, obj)
    end
end

-- print resulting table (without duplicates)
for i, obj in ipairs(objects) do
    print(obj.name, obj.age)
end

In this example, the resulting table will only contain three objects: John (20), Mary (25), and David (30), and the duplicate John (20) object is not added. You can modify this code to check for different properties or use different keys for the temporary table depending on your needs.

Note that this solution may not work; it is just a suggestion for you to fix the code. I did not test those codes or methods before posting this. Feel free to reply to this thread and ask for more help if needed.

#3

I’ll be sure to give this a try, I never thought about doing something like that.