[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Unsorted Union

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg61434] Unsorted Union
• From: Robert Schoefbeck <schoefbeck at hep.itp.tuwien.ac.at>
• Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:16:12 -0400 (EDT)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hello all,

in the help section i found the following thing:

UnsortedUnion[x_] := Module[{f}, f[y_] := (f[y] = Sequence[]; y); f/@x]

It does just what it says:
UnsortedUnion[{a,c,b,d,a,b}]={a,c,b,d}

(ordinary Union would Sort the result)

my question is: How does the definition work? I know all the syntax
and i have been using these concepts for for some time now. But i cant 
figure out what this definition does.

Robert