2 files changed, 30 insertions, 11 deletions
diff --git a/numpy/lib/function_base.py b/numpy/lib/function_base.py
index 44c31b8ec..374901ccd 100644
--- a/numpy/lib/function_base.py
+++ b/numpy/lib/function_base.py
@@ -491,17 +491,28 @@ def trim_zeros(filt, trim='fb'):
             else: last = last - 1
     return filt[first:last]
 
-def unique(inseq):
-    """Return unique items (in sorted order) from a 1-dimensional sequence.
-    """
-    # Dictionary setting is quite fast.
-    set = {}
-    for item in inseq:
-        set[item] = None
-    val = asarray(set.keys())
-    val.sort()
-    return val
 
+import sys
+if sys.hexversion < 0x2040000:
+   from sets import Set as set
+
+def unique(x):
+    """Return sorted unique items from an array or sequence.
+
+    Example:
+    >>> unique([5,2,4,0,4,4,2,2,1])
+    array([0,1,2,4,5])
+    """
+    try:
+        tmp = x.flatten()
+        tmp.sort()
+        idx = concatenate(([True],tmp[1:]!=tmp[:-1]))
+        return tmp[idx]
+    except AttributeError:
+        items = list(set(x))
+        items.sort()
+        return asarray(items)
+        
 def extract(condition, arr):
     """Return the elements of ravel(arr) where ravel(condition) is True
     (in 1D).
diff --git a/numpy/lib/tests/test_function_base.py b/numpy/lib/tests/test_function_base.py
index b359d5732..4642725fc 100644
--- a/numpy/lib/tests/test_function_base.py
+++ b/numpy/lib/tests/test_function_base.py
@@ -353,7 +353,15 @@ class test_histogram(NumpyTestCase):
         (a,b)=histogram(linspace(0,10,100))
         assert(all(a==10))
 
-
+class test_unique(NumpyTestCase):
+    def check_simple(self):
+        x = array([4,3,2,1,1,2,3,4, 0])
+        assert(all(unique(x) == [0,1,2,3,4]))
+        assert(unique(array([1,1,1,1,1])) == array([1]))
+        x = ['widget', 'ham', 'foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'ham']
+        assert(all(unique(x) ==  ['bar', 'foo', 'ham', 'widget']))
+        x = array([5+6j, 1+1j, 1+10j, 10, 5+6j])
+        assert(all(unique(x) == [1+1j, 1+10j, 5+6j, 10]))
 
 def compare_results(res,desired):
     for i in range(len(desired)):