Python list of tuples

Question

I'm a newbie with python and programming in general and need some help: I have a list that I've created earlier in the program by appending from a loop (i.e. I can't just redefine my list now to solve my problem), of 24 4-tuples:

elementary = [(23, 1, 18, 4), (23, 1, 6, 16), (23, 1, 4, 18), (23, 2, 18, 3), (23, 2, 12, 9), (23, 2, 9, 12), (23, 2, 3, 18), (23, 3, 18, 2), (23, 3, 2, 18), (23, 4, 18, 1), (23, 4, 1, 18), (23, 5, 14, 7), (23, 5, 7, 14), (23, 6, 16, 1), (23, 6, 9, 8), (23, 6, 8, 9), (23, 6, 1, 16), (23, 7, 14, 5), (23, 7, 5, 14), (23, 8, 9, 6), (23, 8, 6, 9), (23, 9, 12, 2), (23, 9, 8, 6), (23, 9, 6, 8), (23, 9, 2, 12), (23, 12, 9, 2), (23, 12, 2, 9), (23, 14, 7, 5), (23, 14, 5, 7), (23, 16, 1, 6), (23, 18, 4, 1), (23, 18, 3, 2), (23, 18, 2, 3), (23, 18, 1, 4)]

but now would like to get rid of the tuples that are just re-arranged... in other words, after the first tuple ((23,1,18,4)) I would let get rid of (23,1,4,18), (23,4,1,18), etc..., and if possible, I'd like to do this throughout the list, so that I only end up with 6 completely distinct 4-tuples. Is there any way to do this without going back and doing something differently earlier in my program? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

How about:

{tuple(sorted(t)): t for t in elementary}.values()

Answer 2

As a 1-liner, this sorts each 4-tuple, then creates a set of the result, shich has the effect of removing the duplicates. I'm assuming your 4-tuples are allowed to have the order of elements changed.

set(tuple(sorted(i)) for i in elementary)

>>> set((5, 7, 14, 23), (6, 8, 9, 23), (2, 3, 18, 23), (1, 4, 18, 23), (1, 6, 16, 23), (2, 9, 12, 23))