Removing duplicates on very large datasets

Question

I'm working on a 13.9 GB csv file that contains around 16 million rows and 85 columns. I know there are potentially a few hundred thousand rows that are duplicates. I ran this code to remove them

import pandas

concatDf=pandas.read_csv("C:\\OUT\\Concat EPC3.csv")
nodupl=concatDf.drop_duplicates()
nodupl.to_csv("C:\\OUT\\Concat EPC3- NoDupl.csv",index=0)
low_memory=False  

However this runs me into a MemoryError. My ram is 16gb and can't go any higher. Is there a more efficient way of removing duplicates that perhaps does it chunks without me having to break up the csv file into smaller files?

Answer 1

Essentially the same idea as zwer, but checking for equality in rows with the same hash (instead of automatically discarding duplicated hashes).

file_in = "C:\\OUT\\Concat EPC3.csv"
file_out = "C:\\OUT\\Concat EPC3- NoDupl.csv"

with open(file_in, 'r') as f_in, open(file_out, 'w') as f_out:
    # Skip header
    next(f_in)
    # Find duplicated hashes
    hashes = set()
    hashes_dup = {}
    for row in f_in:
        h = hash(row)
        if h in hashes:
            hashes_dup[h] = set()
        else:
            hashes.add(h)
    del hashes
    # Rewind file
    f_in.seek(0)
    # Copy header
    f_out.write(next(f_in))
    # Copy non repeated lines
    for row in f_in:
        h = hash(row)
        if h in hashes_dup:
            dups = hashes_dup[h]
            if row in dups:
                continue
            dups.add(row)
        f_out.write(row)