You must store the data you are parsing, then on each new data, look in past data to see if it is already there. If so, just discard it.

Can you show a small significant chunk of your data, including parts showing the duplication problem?

hi again,

this problem of recognising duplicate values is driving me nuts -  sorry if i'm being a numpte! a bit tentative about posting about this problem again.

i have updated the code i posted before below. And it seems to work properly in terms of bringing the data in (same as i posted) and parsing it correctly. Each branch is represented as a red rectangle - of which there are two. And each attribute is represented with a dot, coloured to which type of data it is. So i think the code its right:Cool. But i can't get my head around how to check if data being brought in is a duplicate of other data

from playing with the code it seems there is a number of different ways to "collect" the data and then represent it;

for example node.getAttribute("title"); gathers a particular attribute - so i could check for duplicates here

and (commented out below) an array which gathers all attributes which could then be checked - guess making this an arraylist would be easier/better but my brain became spaghetti trying!

this is only the start of what i am hoping to do in terms of representing the data - once i can get it in recognising duplicate data, so i will have other questions for sure but any help on how to find values of a list or arraylist which equals another value in the same array/arraylist would be very much appreciated.

/////////////////////code//////////////////////////

//loads data from an xml file
//represents each row of data in file graphically as a red rectangle
//and data in each row as a dot coloured relative to type of data
//feb 2010
import proxml.*;
import proxml.XMLElement;

XMLElement branches;
XMLInOut xmlInOut;
/*..................................................................*/
void setup() {
 size(200,200);
 background(0);
 smooth();

 //load nodes from file
 xmlInOut = new XMLInOut(this);
 xmlInOut.loadElement("testData3.xml");
}
/*..................................................................*/
void xmlEvent(XMLElement element){
 branches = element;
 XMLElement node;

 // parse through branches: gets each row of data in xml file
 for(int i = 0; i < branches.countChildren();i++){
   node = branches.getChild(i);
   //print(node);
   //draw a node for each child
   fill(255,0,0);
   rect(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);

   //gets values of particular attributes
   node.getAttribute("title");
   print(node.getAttribute("title") + ", ");
   fill(255,255,0);
   ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);

   node.getAttribute("source");
   print(node.getAttribute("source") + ", ");
   fill(255,0,255);
   ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);

   node.getAttribute("tag1");
   print(node.getAttribute("tag1") + ", ");
   fill(50,50,255);
   ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);
//    ArrayList v = new ArrayList();
//    v.add(node.getAttribute("tag1"));
//    for(int j=0; j<v.size(); j++)
//    **knowing duplicate data is here** is this the place to check - loop through each item of arraylist v checking it against other items in the same list to see if equal?
       
   try {
     node.getAttribute("tag2");
     print(node.getAttribute("tag2") + ", ");
     fill(50,150,255);
     ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);
   }
   catch (Exception e) {
   }
   
   try {
     node.getAttribute("tag3");
     println(node.getAttribute("tag3") + ", ");
     fill(50,255,255);
     ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);
   }
   catch (Exception e) {
   }
   

//        String attributes []  = node.getAttributes();
//        attributes = reverse(attributes);
//        println(attributes);
//        // parse through attributes of each branch: gets data in the row
//        for(int j = 0; j < attributes.length; j++){
//          print(attributes[j]+":" + node.getAttribute(attributes[j]) + ", ");
//          fill(255);
//          ellipse(random(width), random(height), 10, 10);
//        }

 }
}