How to remember difference between Unique and Distinct?

Many times, people use Distinct and Unique interchangeably. However, they are not same. Even after understanding the difference, it was hard to remember the difference. This blog will elaborate on the difference between Distinct & Unique and how to remember this.

Table of Contents

Difference between Unique and Distinct

Distinct: All different values in a dataset, regardless of how many times they appear. Each value is counted only once, even if it appears multiple times.

Unique: Values that appear exactly once in the dataset.

Lets understand this with example

Let us say dataset = {1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5}

So,

Distinct values of above dataset are {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} whereas,

Unique values of above dataset are {1, 3, 5}