$unique

Usage: $unique(name[,case_sensitive[,separator]])

Category: multi-value

Implemented: Picard 2.6.1

Description:

Returns a sorted copy of the multi-value variable name with duplicate elements removed. By default, the comparison ignores the case of the elements; however, this can be changed by setting case_sensitive to a non-empty value. A literal value representing a multi-value can be substituted for name, using the separator (or a semicolon followed by a space “; ” if not passed) to coerce the value into a proper multi-valued variable. If name is missing $unique will return an empty string.

Note

When performing a (default) case-insensitive comparison, the last matching element will be used in the result. For example, if the multi-value variable contained ‘abc’, ‘Abc’, ‘ABc’ and ‘ABC’ in that order, then the element ‘ABC’ would be included in the output.

Example:

The following statements will return the values indicated:

$setmulti(foo,a; A; B; b; cd; Cd; cD; CD; a; A; b)
$set(bar,a; A; B; b; cd; Cd; cD; CD; a; A; b)

$unique(%foo%)     ==>  "A; CD; b"
$unique(%bar%)     ==>  "a; A; B; b; cd; Cd; cD; CD; a; A; b"
$unique(%foo%,1)   ==>  "A; B; CD; Cd; a; b; cD; cd"

$unique(a; A; B; b; cd; Cd; cD; CD; a; A; b)  ==>  "A; CD; b"