Getting first n unique elements from Python list

Question

I have a python list where elements can repeat.

>>> a = [1,2,2,3,3,4,5,6]

I want to get the first n unique elements from

Answer 1

Assuming the elements are ordered as shown, this is an opportunity to have fun with the groupby function in itertools:

from itertools import groupby, islice

def first_unique(data, upper):
    return islice((key for (key, _) in groupby(data)), 0, upper)

a = [1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6]

print(list(first_unique(a, 5)))

Updated to use islice instead of enumerate per @juanpa.arrivillaga. You don't even need a set to keep track of duplicates.