Remove duplicates separated by commas – GREP or Script help

[jimd97292894]

I'm working on a catalog using data merge. The data is coming in like this:

Black, Black, Black, Yellow, Yellow, Green, Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Red, Red, Brown, Purple, Purple, Purple, Purple, Purple

Can someone help with a Script or GREP that will remove the duplicates and leave me with this?:

Black, Yellow, Green, Blue, Red, Brown, Purple

Also, there are many more color combinations and the duplication can be up to 12 times in a string of text.

Any help from the community is greatly appreciated!!

[SJRiegel]

If your data merge is creating this problem, it should be fixable by editing your merge template or your data file.

[jimd97292894]

Unfortunately, it's being created in the Excel file that I'm grabbing the data from. According to our Excel guru it can't be easily fixed on his end.

[SJRiegel]

Here's a GREP, but it will have to run separately for each color that has duplicates in the document. 
Just be sure to add the space in the find and replace fields.

[jimd97292894]

Thanks! I'll give that a try!! That's the starting point I was looking for, I should be able to write an AppleScript based on that.

[winterm]

I'd prefer this AIO:

Find:

(\w+, )\1

Change to:

$1

Repeat Change All untill no matches will be found.

[jimd97292894]

Thanks, winterm! When I ran that, my output was this: Black, Black, Yellow, Green, Blue, Blue, Red, Brown, Purple, Purple, Purple. Any idea why?

[jimd97292894]

Never mind! I see you have to run it multiple times!! Thanks!!!!

[jimd97292894]

Any fix if there are also TWO or THREE words separated by commas? If example: "Light Blue Grey, Light Blue Grey, Light Blue Grey, Dark Red, Dark Red, Green, Green, Green, Green"

The GREP doesn't seem to work in that instance.

[winterm · Accepted solution]

No surprise, since it's based on a given samples. Try this ((\w+ )*\w+, )\1 or this ([^,]+, )\1 Slightly different approach, but result ought to be essentially the same.

[jimd97292894]

Thank you!!!!

[jimd97292894 · Accepted solution]

Final AppleScript based on winterm's GREP. I added the repeat loop and placed it at 12 because 12 is the maximum number of times a color will repeat in my project. If this is used as a GREP only ((\w+ )*\w+, )\1, you have to run it multiple times to work.

tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2019"

repeat 12 times

set find grep preferences to nothing

set change grep preferences to nothing

set find what of find grep preferences to "((\\w+ )*\\w+, )\\1"

set change to of change grep preferences to "$1"

change grep

set find grep preferences to nothing

set change grep preferences to nothing

end repeat

end tell