---
page_title: distinct function reference
description: The `distinct` function removes duplicate elements from a list. Learn how to use the `distince` function in Packer templates.
---

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> [!IMPORTANT]  
> **Documentation Update:** Product documentation previously located in `/website` has moved to the [`hashicorp/web-unified-docs`](https://github.com/hashicorp/web-unified-docs) repository, where all product documentation is now centralized. Please make contributions directly to `web-unified-docs`, since changes to `/website` in this repository will not appear on developer.hashicorp.com.
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# `distinct` Function

`distinct` takes a list and returns a new list with any duplicate elements
removed.

The first occurrence of each value is retained and the relative ordering of
these elements is preserved.

## Examples

```shell-session
> distinct(["a", "b", "a", "c", "d", "b"])
[
  "a",
  "b",
  "c",
  "d",
]
```
