Delete Duplicates

'''
This script deletes identical rows in the mls point file.

Currently tested with 'apn' column which seemingly corresponds to unique listings.
The column 'apn' was chosen because it provided both a handle on unique mls listing
while also being a integer field making sorting easy. Sorting was necessary to identify duplicates

Additionally, many of the duplicate records contained refrence to the same property but were found 7-10 meters apart.
This made the 'Delete Identical' tool (ArcGIS Advanced License only ) inadeqaute here.

Once duplicates were identified and removed geoprocessing tasks on the mls dataset for neighborhood determinations could be performed.

Author: Noah Huntington
Date: 9/2/2017

'''
import arcpy



arcpy.env.workspace = r'C:\Users\<user>\Desktop\opendoor\data.gdb'
fc = 'mls'

fields = ['apn']

counter = 0
matchCount = 0
sql_clause = (None, 'ORDER BY apn ASC')

with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc,'apn','','','', sql_clause) as cursor:

    for row in cursor:

        n = row[0]
        if counter > 0 and oldN == n:
            expression = "\"apn\" = {0}" .format(n)
            if expression:
                #print 'We have a match!'
                cursor.deleteRow()
                matchCount = matchCount + 1

        oldN = n
        counter = counter + 1

print matchCount