6.4. Removing Elements
Problem
You want to remove an element or elements from an array and shift any remaining elements to fill the vacant indexes.
Solution
Use the splice( )
method to remove
elements in the middle
of the array. You can use pop( )
to remove the
last element or shift( )
to remove the first
element.
Discussion
You can remove elements from an array starting at a specified index
using the splice( )
method. When using
splice( )
to delete elements, you should pass it
two parameters:
-
start
The index of the array from which to start deleting elements.
-
deleteCount
The number of elements to delete. If this value is
undefined
, all the elements fromstart
to the end of the array are deleted:myArray = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]; // Remove one element from
myArray
starting at index 1. myArray.splice(1, 1); // Display the results. The array now contains three elements: "a", "c", and "d". for (var i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { trace(myArray[i]); }
The splice( )
method also returns a new array
containing the deleted elements. For example:
myArray = ["a", "b", "c", "d"];
// Remove two elements from myArray
starting at index 0.
deletedElems = myArray.splice(0, 2);
// Display the deleted elements: "a" and "b".
for (var i = 0; i < deletedElems.length; i++) {
trace(deletedElems [i]);
}
If deleting a single element from the beginning or end of the array,
you can use the shift( )
and pop(
)
methods. The shift( )
method
removes the first element of the array and returns its value. The
pop( )
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