thrust::unique_copy

Defined in thrust/unique.h

template<typename InputIterator, typename OutputIterator> OutputIterator thrust::unique_copy(InputIterator first, InputIterator last, OutputIterator result)

unique_copy copies elements from the range [first, last) to a range beginning with result, except that in a consecutive group of duplicate elements only the first one is copied. The return value is the end of the range to which the elements are copied.

The reason there are two different versions of unique_copy is that there are two different definitions of what it means for a consecutive group of elements to be duplicates. In the first version, the test is simple equality: the elements in a range [f, l) are duplicates if, for every iterator i in the range, either i == f or else *i == *(i-1). In the second, the test is an arbitrary BinaryPredicate binary_pred: the elements in [f, l) are duplicates if, for every iterator i in the range, either i == f or else binary_pred(*i, *(i-1)) is true.

This version of unique_copy uses operator== to test for equality.

The following code snippet demonstrates how to use unique_copy to compact a sequence of numbers to remove consecutive duplicates.

#include <thrust/unique.h>
...
const int N = 7;
int A[N] = {1, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1};
int B[N];
int *result_end = thrust::unique_copy(A, A + N, B);
// The first four values of B are now {1, 3, 2, 1} and (result_end - B) is 4
// Values beyond result_end are unspecified