AutoLISP: Removing consecutive duplicates in list

Question

I've been looking for an efficient way of removing consecutive duplicates in a list of points.

My original thinking was to loop through the elements of the list making a comparison with the (n-1)th element and removing it if its equal. But then it is not trivial to remove an element in a list and using another function would make it inefficient.

I am aware of Lee Mac's RemoveOnce function but I don't know how to modify it to make a comparison between consecutive elements of a list.

The goal as an example would be the following:

List = (p1 p2 p3 p3 p3 p2 p2 p4)

List_without_consecutive_duplicates = (p1 p2 p3 p2 p4)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Here's an iterative method:

(defun remcondupes ( l / r )
    (while l
        (if (not (equal (car l) (cadr l) 1e-8))
            (setq r (cons (car l) r))
        )
        (setq l (cdr l))
    )
    (reverse r)
)

And here's a recursive method:

(defun remcondupes ( l )
    (if l
        (if (equal (car l) (cadr l) 1e-8)
            (remcondupes (cdr l))
            (cons (car l) (remcondupes (cdr l)))
        )
    )
)

In both of the above, the first element in the list is compared to the second using the equal function with a tolerance of 1e-8 (since we're comparing points), with the first element discarded if this test is validated.

Testing:

_$ (setq p1 '(1.2 2.3) p2 '(3.4 4.5) p3 '(5.6 6.7) p4 '(7.8 8.9))
(7.8 8.9)
_$ (setq lst (list p1 p2 p3 p3 p3 p2 p2 p4))
((1.2 2.3) (3.4 4.5) (5.6 6.7) (5.6 6.7) (5.6 6.7) (3.4 4.5) (3.4 4.5) (7.8 8.9))
_$ (remcondupes lst)
((1.2 2.3) (3.4 4.5) (5.6 6.7) (3.4 4.5) (7.8 8.9))

EDIT:

Alternatively, to account for consecutive points each successively within the comparison tolerance (per Will's comments below), you might consider the following variations:

(defun remcondupes ( l / r )
    (while l
        (if (equal (car l) (cadr l) 1e-8)
            (setq l (cons (car l) (cddr l)))
            (setq r (cons (car l) r)
                  l (cdr l)
            )
        )
    )
    (reverse r)
)

(defun remcondupes ( l )
    (if l
        (if (equal (car l) (cadr l) 1e-8)
            (remcondupes (cons (car l) (cddr l)))
            (cons (car l) (remcondupes (cdr  l)))
        )
    )
)