In-Place Duplicate Removal | Dataford Interview Questions

Given an array of integers, write a function to remove all duplicates without using extra space.

Implement remove_duplicates(nums) so it mutates nums, keeps the first occurrence of each value, preserves the original order of retained values, and returns the modified array. The function may use only constant auxiliary space.

Input and Output

nums is a list of integers. Return the same list after removing duplicates.

Constraints

0 <= nums.length <= 500
-10^9 <= nums[i] <= 10^9
The original relative order of first occurrences must be preserved
Use O(1) auxiliary space

Function Signature

def remove_duplicates(nums):

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