jQuery.unique on an array of strings

Question

The description of jQuery.unique() states:

Sorts an array of DOM elements, in place, with the duplicates removed. Note that this only works on arrays

Answer 1

It might work on an array strings, etc, but it has not been designed for that use...

Notice that the code for unique() is hiding in Sizzle as uniqueSort: github source

While some of that extra code might seem like it would work on any array, pay close attention to sortOrder as defined here. It does a lot of extra work to put things in "document order" - hence why the documentation states that it should only be used on arrays of DOM elements.