How to Remove Duplicate Elements From Java ArrayList

June 21, 2022

How to Remove Duplicate Elements From Java ArrayList

This post shows different ways to remove duplicate elements from ArrayList in Java.

ArrayList in Java is designed to store repeated elements where as HashSet only store unique elements, using that feature of HashSet in Java you can remove duplicates from ArrayList.

Only problem is HashSet is an unordered collection so insertion order won’t be maintained in HashSet. If you want insertion order of the List to be maintained then you can use LinkedHashSet for removing duplicates from ArrayList. LinkedHashSet in Java maintains the insertion order. Let’s see code examples using both of these collections.

Table of contents

Removing duplicate elements using HashSet
Removing duplicate elements using LinkedHashSet
Removing duplicate elements using Stream API

Removing duplicate elements from ArrayList using HashSet

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

public class DuplicateListRemoval {
  public static void main(String[] args) {        
    List<String> carList = new ArrayList<String>();
    carList.add("Audi");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Jaguar");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Mini Cooper");
    System.out.println("List with duplicates- " + carList);
    // Creating set using the List
    Set<String> carSet = new HashSet<String>(carList);
    carList.clear();
    //Adding set to List to get a new list
    carList.addAll(carSet);
    System.out.println("List after removing duplicates- " + carList);
  }
}

Output

List with duplicates- [Audi, BMW, Jaguar, BMW, Mini Cooper]
List after removing duplicates- [Audi, Jaguar, Mini Cooper, BMW]

As you can see from the output duplicates are removed from the List but insertion order is not maintained. That brings us to the next program using LinkedHashSet to remove duplicate elements.

Removing duplicate elements from ArrayList using LinkedHashSet

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.LinkedHashSet;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

public class DuplicateListRemoval {
  public static void main(String[] args) {        
    List<String> carList = new ArrayList<String>();
    carList.add("Audi");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Jaguar");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Mini Cooper");
    System.out.println("List with duplicates- " + carList);
    // Creating set using the List
    Set<String> carSet = new LinkedHashSet<String>(carList);
    carList.clear();
    //Adding set to List to get a new list
    carList.addAll(carSet);
    System.out.println("List after removing duplicates- " + carList);
  }
}

Output

List with duplicates- [Audi, BMW, Jaguar, BMW, Mini Cooper]
List after removing duplicates- [Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mini Cooper]

As you can see from the output duplicates are removed from the List and insertion order is maintained too.

Removing duplicate elements from ArrayList using Stream API

Java 8 onward you can use Stream API to remove duplicates from a List. In Stream API there is a distinct() method that returns a stream consisting of the distinct elements of this stream.

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

public class DuplicateListRemoval {
  public static void main(String[] args) {        
    List<String> carList = new ArrayList<String>();
    carList.add("Audi");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Jaguar");
    carList.add("BMW");
    carList.add("Mini Cooper");
    System.out.println("List with duplicates- " + carList);
    // Using Stream 
    carList = carList.stream().distinct().collect(Collectors.toList());
    System.out.println("List after removing duplicates- " + carList);
  }
}

Output

List with duplicates- [Audi, BMW, Jaguar, BMW, Mini Cooper]
List after removing duplicates- [Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mini Cooper]

As you can see duplicates are removed from the ArrayList and insertion order is also maintained.

That's all for the topic How to Remove Duplicate Elements From Java ArrayList. If something is missing or you have something to share about the topic please write a comment.

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