Remove Duplicates in Array

[ldsmike88]

I have this really long array that I run through a function I made to remove the duplicates. The only problem is it removes all of them but one... I can't figure out why. If I run the removeDuplicates function a second time it works, but not the first time. Anyone know why?

 

Array = Websites, Games, Soups, Soups, Church, Church, Games, Church, Church, Church, Church, Websites, Church, Church, Church, Church, Soups, Church, Church

 

If you notice there are a whole lot of values that are Church. Guess which one doesn't get removed.

 

function removeDuplicatesTWO(array){
for(i = 0; i < array.length; i++){
	for(a = 0; a < array.length; a++){
		if(i != a){
			if(array[i] == array[a]){
				array.splice(a, 1);
			}
		}
	}
}
return(array);
}

 

Running it through this function and sorting it will return:

Array = Church, Church, Games, Soups, Websites

[fenway]

The preferred way to do this is to built a hash from the array... or as an alternative, if you want to the order to stay the same, to simply "mark" the elements as duplicates based on a seen hash in a parallel array.