22
\$\begingroup\$

Based on this question from Code Review

Given a non-empty string of printable ASCII characters, output the second non-repeating character. For example, for input DEFD, output F.

Input

Output

  • The second character that doesn't repeat, when reading left-to-right, again in a suitable format.
  • The output character is case-insensitive.
  • If no such character exists (e.g., all characters repeat), output an empty string.

Rules

  • The algorithm should ignore case. That is, D and d count as the same character.
  • Either a full program or a function are acceptable.
  • The input string will be guaranteed non-empty (i.e., at least one character in length).
  • The input string is ASCII. Any valid character could repeat, not just alphanumeric (this includes spaces).
  • Standard loopholes are forbidden.
  • This is so all usual golfing rules apply, and the shortest code (in bytes) wins.

Examples

Input is on first line, output is on second line.

DEFD F FEED D This is an example input sentence. x ...,,,..,,!@ @ ABCDefgHijklMNOPqrsTuVWxyz B AAAAAABBBBB Thisxthis This this. . 
\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 8
    \$\begingroup\$ If it wasn't case-insensitive, I'd consider doing it in Forth. String operations suck in that language, though. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 17:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ What if my language doesn't support lowercase letters? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 10:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Adám Does it utilize a different code page? How would it normally input an ASCII string if it doesn't support lowercase letters? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 13:37
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ The system I had in mind had 7-bit code page; a modified standard code page where uppercase letters occupy the lowercase positions, and the uppercase positions were used for glyphs. This was done on old APL systems so that one could use Shift to access APL glyphs, while unshifted letters were classic coding-style capitals. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 13:46

44 Answers 44

11
\$\begingroup\$

MATL, 11 bytes

tk&=s1=)FT) 

This exits with an error (allowed by default) if there is no second non-repeated character.

Try it online!

Explanation

t % Implicitly take input string. Duplicate k % Convert to lowercase &= % 2D array of equality comparisons s % Sum of each column 1= % True for entries that equal 1 ) % Apply logical index to the input string to keep non-repeated characters TF) % Apply logical index to take 2nd element if it exists. Implicitly display 
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ The ninja edit strikes again. :P \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 16:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Dennis Hahaha. Well, I guess you'll remove a couple of bytes soon \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 17:22
10
\$\begingroup\$

Retina, 25 bytes

i!2=`(.)(?<!\1.+)(?!.*\1) 

Try it online! (The first line enables running the code on a test suite of several inputs.)

Explanation

This is just a single regex match, the regex being:

(.)(?<!\1.+)(?!.*\1) 

That is, match a character and ensure it doesn't appear anywhere else in the input. The rest is configuration:

  • i activates case insensitivity.
  • ! tells Retina to print the matches as opposed to counting them.
  • 2= tells Retina to print only the second match as opposed to all of them.
\$\endgroup\$
0
7
\$\begingroup\$

05AB1E, 15 12 bytes

l©v®y¢iy}}1@ 

Explained

l© # store lower case string in register v } # for each char in lower case string ®y¢iy # if it occurs once in string, push it to stack } # end if 1@ # push the 2nd element from stack and implicitly display 

Try it online

Saved 3 bytes thanks to @Adnan

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Or for 12 bytes l©v®y¢iy}}1@ :). \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 2, 2016 at 0:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Adnan: Nice! Didn't think of using @. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 2, 2016 at 10:59
6
\$\begingroup\$

Jelly, 11 bytes

Œlµḟœ-Q$Ḋḣ1 

Try it online! or verify all test cases.

How it works

Œlµḟœ-Q$Ḋḣ1 Main link. Argument: s (string) Œl Convert s to lowercase. µ Begin a new, monadic chain. Argument: s (lowercase string) $ Combine the two links to the left into a monadic chain. Q Unique; yield the first occurrence of each character. œ- Perform multiset subtraction, removing the last occurrence of each character. ḟ Filterfalse; keep characters that do not appear in the difference. Ḋ Dequeue; remove the first character. ḣ1 Head 1; remove everything but the first character. 
\$\endgroup\$
5
\$\begingroup\$

Python 2, 59 58 bytes

Returns a list of a single character, or an empty list if no output. (Stupid case-insensitivity...)

s=input().lower();print[c for c in s if s.count(c)<2][1:2] 

Try it online

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @mbomb007 meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/7634 \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 16:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's not valid input. The user should never have to escape their input. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 16:41
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ Sure it is. We provide lists on STDIN in the language's list format. Why would strings be any different? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 16:43
5
\$\begingroup\$

Batch, 171 bytes

@echo off set a=. set s=%~1 :l if "%s%"=="" exit/b set c=%s:~0,1% call set t=%%s:%c%=%% if "%s:~1%"=="%t%" set a=%a%%c% set s=%t% if "%a:~2%"=="" goto l echo %c% 

Alternative formulation, also 171 bytes:

@echo off set a=. set s=%~1 :l if "%s%"=="" exit/b set c=%s:~0,1% set t=%s:~1% call set s=%%s:%c%=%% if "%s%"=="%t%" set a=%a%%c% if "%a:~2%"=="" goto l echo %c% 
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can't make it to run on W2008R2. Line "call set ..." expands to "call set t=%s:D=%" and aborts with "The syntax of the command is incorrect" message. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 2, 2016 at 23:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @meden Sorry, some typos crept into my post. The dead giveaway was that the post was shorter than I said it was! They're fixed now. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 0:09
3
\$\begingroup\$

Pyth, 16 15 bytes

1 byte thanks to @mbomb007

 =rz1.xhtfq1/zTzk =rz1:fq1/zTz1 2 

Test suite.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I don't even know Pyth, but if you say so. :D \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 19:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mbomb007 You know, the [1:2] trick. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 2, 2016 at 1:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ You can save a byte with t<…2 instead of :…1 2. You can save another byte by moving the =rz1 to its first use, if you also change 1 to Z (for lowercase instead of uppercase output): t<fq1/zT=rzZ2. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 4, 2016 at 1:23
3
\$\begingroup\$

Actually, 19 bytes

;╗`ù╜ùc1=`░ε;(qq1@E 

Try it online!

Explanation:

;╗`ù╜ùc1=`░ε;(qq1@E ;╗ push a copy of input to reg0 `ù╜ùc1=`░ [v for v in s if ù╜ùc1= s.lower().count(v.lower()) == 1] ε;(qq append two empty strings to the list 1@E element at index 1 (second element) 
\$\endgroup\$
3
\$\begingroup\$

C#, 129 128 bytes

char c(string i){var s=i.Where((n,m)=>i.ToLower().Where(o=>o==Char.ToLower(n)).Count()<2).ToArray();return s.Length>1?s[1]:' ';} 

works fine. I wish i didnt need to lowercase everything

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Throws an IndexOutOfRangeException when I pass "Thisxthis" as an argument. Other than that, I think that ==1 can be changed to <2. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 11:10
2
\$\begingroup\$

Mathematica, 49 bytes

Cases[Tally@ToUpperCase@#,{_,1}][[2,1]]~Check~""& 

Anonymous function. Takes a list of characters as input. Ignore any errors that are generated.

\$\endgroup\$
2
\$\begingroup\$

J, 25 bytes

(1{2{.]-.]#~1-~:)@tolower 

Usage

 f =: (1{2{.]-.]#~1-~:)@tolower f 'DEFD' f f 'FEED' d f 'This is an example input sentence.' x f '...,,,..,,!@' @ f 'ABCDefgHijklMNOPqrsTuVWxyz' b f 'AAAAAABBBBB' f 'Thisxthis' f 'This this.' . 

Explanation

(1{2{.]-.]#~1-~:)@tolower Input: s tolower Converts the string s to lowercase ~: Mark the indices where the first time a char appears 1- Complement it ] Identity function to get s #~ Copy only the chars appearing more than once ] Identity function to get s -. Remove all the chars from s appearing more than once 2{. Take the first 2 chars from the result (pad with empty string) 1{ Take the second char at index 1 and return it 
\$\endgroup\$
2
\$\begingroup\$

C# lambda with Linq, 63 bytes

s=>(s=s.ToUpper()).Where(c=>s.Count(C=>c==C)<2).Skip(1).First() 
\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ You should be able to replace .Skip(1).First() with .ElementAt(1) \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 13:46
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Even better you can convert to list and use the index .ToList()[1] \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 13:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ This throws an exception for inputs like "", "AABB", and "AABBC", where there is not a matching character in the 2nd position. I think you need FirstOrDefault. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 22:29
2
\$\begingroup\$

C#, 141 bytes

void p(){var x=Console.ReadLine().ToLower();var c=0;foreach(char i in x){if(x.Split(i).Length-1<2){if(++c==2){Console.WriteLine(i);break;}}}} 

Without break(smallest), 135 bytes

void p(){var x=Console.ReadLine().ToLower();var c=0;foreach(char i in x){if(x.Split(i).Length-1<2){if(++c==2){Console.WriteLine(i);}}}} 

With for(;;), 150 bytes

void p(){for(;;){var x=Console.ReadLine().ToLower();var c=0;foreach(char i in x){if(x.Split(i).Length-1<2){if(++c==2){Console.WriteLine(i);break;}}}}} 

Ungolfed with comments

void p() { var x=Console.ReadLine().ToLower();//Get lowercase version of input from STDIN var c=0; //Create "count" integer foreach(char i in x){//For each char in input from STDIN if(x.Split(i).Length-1<2)//If current char occurs once in input from STDIN { if(++c==2){ //Add 1 to count and if count is 2 Console.WriteLine(i); //Print result to STDOUT break; //Exit foreach } //End of IF } //End of IF } //End of FOREACH } //End of VOID 

12 bytes saved by TuukkaX(change count to c).

3 bytes saved by TuukkaX(change string to var).

4 bytes saved by TuukkaX in "With for(;;)"(changed while(true) to for(;;)).

2 bytes saved by TuukkaX(changed c++;if(c==2) to if(++c==2)).

14 bytes saved by Bryce Wagner(changed x.ToCharArray() to x).

\$\endgroup\$
15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Welcome to PPCG! That's a nice first post! Since the rules mention that answers to this problem should either be functions or full programs, your codes require little tweaks. You can also save bytes by using var instead of string and having something like c instead of count. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 20:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TuukkaX Thank you again! Shortly I'll modify the code and change string to var. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 20:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TuukkaX Should I add something like void program(){}??? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 20:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, but give a one byte function name to save bytes! :) \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 20:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TuukkaX Done. Good? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 20:23
2
\$\begingroup\$

x86 machine code, 43 bytes

In hex:

FC31C031C95641AC84C0740E3C6172F63C7A77F28066FFDFEBEC5EAC49740B89F751F2AE5974F44A77F1C3 

Function takes a pointer to the input string in (E)SI and an integer in (E)DX and returns the (E)DX-th non-repeating character or zero if there's no such character. As a side-effect it converts the string to upper case.

Disassembly:

fc cld 31 c0 xor eax,eax 31 c9 xor ecx,ecx 56 push esi _loop0: ;Search for the NULL char, 41 inc ecx ;counting the length in the process ac lodsb 84 c0 test al,al 74 0e je _break0 ;NULL found, break 3c 61 cmp al,0x61 ;If char is 72 f6 jb _loop0 ;between 'a' and 'z' 3c 7a cmp al,0x7a ;convert this char 77 f2 ja _loop0 ;to uppercase in-place 80 66 ff df and byte ptr [esi-0x1],0xdf eb ec jmp _loop0 _break0: 5e pop esi ;Reset pointer to the string _loop: ;ECX=string length with NULL ac lodsb ;Load next char to AL 49 dec ecx 74 0b je _ret ;End of string found, break (AL==0) 89 f7 mov edi,esi ;EDI points to the next char 51 push ecx f2 ae repnz scasb ;Search for AL in the rest of the string 59 pop ecx 74 f4 je _loop ;ZF==1 <=> another instance found, continue 4a dec edx 77 f1 ja _loop ;If not yet the EDX-th non-rep char, continue _ret: c3 ret 
\$\endgroup\$
2
\$\begingroup\$

APL, 32 bytes

{⊃1↓⍵/⍨1=+/∘.=⍨(⎕UCS ⍵)+32×⍵∊⎕A} 

Try it || All test cases

Explanation:

 (⎕UCS ⍵)+32×⍵∊⎕A Add 32 to uppercase letters ∘.=⍨ Make an equality matrix +/ Check how many matches ⍵/⍨1= Keep elements with 1 match 1↓ Drop the first one ⊃ Return the second one 

I was about to post it with 16 bytes, but the I realized it had to be case-insensitive...

\$\endgroup\$
6
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ (⎕UCS ⍵)+32×⍵∊⎕A819⌶⍵ \$\endgroup\$ Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 7:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've never seen that operator before. What version does it work in? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 17:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ It is called the i-beam. It is an operator in all versions of Dyalog APL. It was originally a function in old versions of IBM's APL for special calls to the IBM system. Get it? I-B-M — i-beam? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 17:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ Documentation for in general and for service 819 ("819" ≈ "BIg"). Try it online! \$\endgroup\$ Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 17:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ Well, I've learned something new. tryapl.org doesn't seem to recognize it, so do you mind if I just use your TIO link? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 18:17
2
\$\begingroup\$

05AB1E, 9 6 bytes

lТϦн 

Input as a list of characters.

Try it online or verify all test cases.

Explanation:

l # Convert the characters in the (implicit) input-list to lowercase Ð # Triplicate this lowercase list ¢ # Pop two, and get the count of each character in the list Ï # Pop the counts and remaining list, and only keep the characters at the truthy # (count==1) positions ¦ # Remove the first character н # Pop and leave the new first character # (after which it is output implicitly as result) 

Unfortunately the .m (least frequent character(s) builtin) doesn't retain its order in the legacy version of 05AB1E and will only keep the first character instead of a list in the new 05AB1E version, otherwise this could have been 5 bytes with l.m¦¬.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Retina, 43 36 bytes

iM!`(.)(?<!\1.+)(?!.*\1) !`(?<=^.¶). 

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
1
\$\begingroup\$

JavaScript (Firefox 48 or earlier), 60 bytes

f=s=>(m=s.match(/(.).*\1/i))?f(s.replace(m[1],"","gi")):s[1] 

Returns undefined if there are only zero or one non-repeating characters. Works by case-insensitively deleting all occurrences of characters that appear more than once in the string. Relies on a non-standard Firefox extension that was removed in Firefox 49. 119 91 byte ES6 version:

f=s=>(m=s.match(/(.).*?(\1)(.*\1)?/i))?f((m[3]?s:s.replace(m[2],"")).replace(m[1],"")):s[1] 

Recursively searches for all characters that appear at least twice in the string. If the character appears exactly twice then both occurrences are deleted otherwise only the first occurrence is deleted (the other occurrences will be deleted later). This allows the occurrences to have a difference case.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ I believe you can actually adapt your Firefox 48 answer to be ES6-compliant by replacing m[1] with new RegExp(`${m[1]}`,"gi") \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 1:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KevinLau-notKenny That wouldn't work for special characters, and it cost me 33 bytes to special-case them, taking me up to 93, unfortunately. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 7:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ noooooo not the special characters! I've had to edit my Ruby answer to accommodate for them as well, now. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 8:09
1
\$\begingroup\$

Bash, 58 bytes

tr A-Z a-z>t tr -dc "`fold -1<t|sort|uniq -u`"<t|cut -c2 

Caution: This creates a temporary file named t. If it already exists, it will be overwritten.

\$\endgroup\$
0
1
\$\begingroup\$

C, 174 bytes

int c(char*s){int y=128,z=256,c[384],t;memset(c,0,z*6);for(;t=toupper(*s);s++){c[t]++?c[t]-2?0:c[z+(c[y+c[z+t]]=c[y+t])]=c[z+t]:c[z]=c[y+(c[z+t]=c[z])]=t;}return c[y+c[y]];} 

This is not the most short, but quite efficient implementation. In essence it uses double-linked list to maintain ordered set of candidate characters and scans input string just once. Returns character code or zero if none found.

A little bit ungolfed version:

int c(char*s) { int y=128,z=256,c[384],t; //It's basically c[3][128], but with linear array the code is shorter memset(c,0,z*6); for(;t=toupper(*s);s++) { c[t]++ ? // c[0][x] - number of char x's occurrence c[t] - 2 ? // > 0 0 // > 1 - nothing to do : c[z + (c[y + c[z + t]] = c[y + t])] = c[z + t] // == 1 - remove char from the list : c[z] = c[y + (c[z + t] = c[z])] = t; // == 0 - add char to the end of the list } return c[y + c[y]]; } 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

C#, 143 bytes

char c(string s){var l=s.Select(o=>Char.ToLower(o)).GroupBy(x=>x).Where(n=>n.Count()<2).Select(m=>m.Key).ToList();return l.Count()>1?l[1]:' ';} 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

TSQL, 128 bytes

Golfed:

DECLARE @ varchar(99)=',,zzzbb@kkkkkkJgg' ,@i INT=99WHILE @i>1SELECT @i-=1,@=IIF(LEN(@)>LEN(x)+1,x,@)FROM(SELECT REPLACE(@,SUBSTRING(@,@i,1),'')x)x PRINT SUBSTRING(@,2,1) 

Ungolfed:

DECLARE @ varchar(99)=',,zzzbb@kkkkkkJgg' ,@i INT=99 WHILE @i>1 SELECT @i-=1,@=IIF(LEN(@)>LEN(x)+1,x,@) FROM (SELECT REPLACE(@,SUBSTRING(@,@i,1),'')x )x PRINT SUBSTRING(@,2,1) 

Fiddle

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Ruby, 53 bytes

Input is STDIN, output is STDOUT. In Ruby, out-of-index positions in an array or string return nil, which is not printed.

String#count is a strange function in Ruby because instead of counting the number of occurrences for the string that was passed in, it counts the number of occurrences for each letter in that string. It's usually annoying but we can use it to our advantage this time. String#swapcase swaps upper and lower case letters.

$><<gets.chars.reject{|c|$_.count(c+c.swapcase)>1}[1] 

Old version that wasn't safe against special characters like . - 46 bytes

$><<gets.chars.reject{|c|$_=~/#{c}.*#{c}/i}[1] 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Java 8, 172 157 bytes

(String s)->{s=s.toLowerCase();for(char i=0,c;s.length()>0;s=s.replace(c+"","")){c=s.charAt(0);if(!s.matches(".*"+c+".*"+c+".*")&&++i>1)return c;}return' ';} 

-15 bytes.. Dang I was bad at golfing back then. ;)

Explanation:

Try it here.

(String s)->{ // Method with String parameter and character return-type s=s.toLowerCase(); // Make the input-String lowercase for(char i=0,c;s.length()>0; // Loop over the characters of `s` s=s.replace(c+"","")){ // And after every iteration, remove all occurrences of the previous iteration c=s.charAt(0); // Get the current first character if(!s.matches(".*"+c+".*"+c+".*") // If it doesn't occur more than once &&++i>1) // And this was the second one we've found return c; // Return this second characters } // End of loop return' '; // Else: return an empty character/nothing } // End of method 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

R, 79 bytes

function(z){y=tolower(el(strsplit(z,"")));x=table(y);y[y%in%names(x[x==1])][2]} 

Try it online!

I definitely feel like something can be golfed out here. But I really enjoyed this challenge.

This answer splits the string into a vector of characters, changes them all to lower case, and tables them (counts them). Characters that occur once are selected and compared to characters within the aforementioned vector, then the second value that is true is returned as output. An empty string, or a string with no repeating characters outputs NA.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Perl 6, 38 32 bytes

-6 bytes thanks to nwellnhof by changing .comb to a case-insensitive regex

{~grep({2>m:g:i/$^a/},.comb)[1]} 

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ m:g:i/$^a/ for 32 bytes. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Sep 1, 2018 at 13:17
1
\$\begingroup\$

K (oK) / K4, 11 bytes

Solution:

*1_&1=#:'=_ 

Try it online!

Explanation:

*1_&1=#:'=_ / the solution _ / convert input to lowercase = / group alike characters #:' / count (#:) each group 1= / 1 equal to length of the group? & / where true 1_ / drop the first * / take the first 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Thunno 2 h, 6 bytes

LDcḅịḣ 

Try it online!

Explanation

LDcḅịḣ # Implicit input ị # Filter the input by: L c # The count of the character lowercased D # In the input lowercased ḅ # Equals one? ḣ # Remove the first character # Implicit output of next character # (or the empty string if it doesn't exist) 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Japt -g, 8 bytes

k@oX ÅÃÅ 

Try it

k@v èXv)É 
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Vyxal, 9 bytes

⇩)ġ~₃f∑Ḣh 

Try it Online!

-3 thanks to @lyxal

Explanation

⇩)ġ~₃f∑Ḣh # Implicit input ⇩)ġ # Group by lowercasing ~₃ # Filter by length == 1 f∑ # Flatten and join Ḣ # Remove the first character h # Then take the next one # (or an empty string # if it doesn't exist) # Implicit output 
\$\endgroup\$

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.