From SICP:
Exercise 2.60. We specified that a set would be represented as a list with no duplicates. Now suppose we allow duplicates. For instance, the set {1,2,3} could be represented as the list (2 3 2 1 3 2 2). Design procedures element-of-set?, adjoin-set, union-set, and intersection-set that operate on this representation. How does the efficiency of each compare with the corresponding procedure for the non-duplicate representation? Are there applications for which you would use this representation in preference to the non-duplicate one?
I wrote the following solution (some parts came from the book):
(define (element-of-set? x set)
(cond ((null? set) false)
((equal? x (car set)) true)
(else (element-of-set? x (cdr set)))))
(define adjoin-set cons)
(define (intersection-set set1 set2)
(cond ((or (null? set1) (null? set2)) '())
((element-of-set? (car set1) set2)
(cons (car set1)
(intersection-set (cdr set1) set2)))
(else (intersection-set (cdr set1) set2))))
(define (union-set set1 set2)
(cond ((null? set1) set2)
((null? set2) set1)
(else (cons (car set1) (union-set (cdr set1) set2)))))1)