Merging values of a list of rules where some keys occur more than once

Question

I have a list of rules resembling

rules = {{a -> {1, 2, 3}}, {b -> {2, 3, 4}}, {c -> {3, 4, 5}, c -> {4, 5, 6}}}

How can I neatly rearrange this to get a list of rules where they keys only occur once, and all their respective values are joined together? Desired output

{a -> {1, 2, 3}, b -> {2, 3, 4}, c -> {3, 4, 5, 6}}

I have what I think is an inelegant approach:

Flatten[
    GatherBy[rules, Keys] /.
        {r__Rule} :> Rule[First @ Keys[{r}], Union @@ Values[{r}]]
]

(* {a -> {1, 2, 3}, b -> {2, 3, 4}, c -> {3, 4, 5, 6}} *)

Is there a better way of doing this?

Answer 1

Merge[{rules}, Union @@ # &]

<|a -> {1, 2, 3}, b -> {2, 3, 4}, c -> {3, 4, 5, 6}|>

You can either continue to use this Association (this works indeed, e.g., with ReplaceAll) or you can convert back to a list of rules with Normal.