Javascript–Using splice instead of delete

I have to admit that the amount of Javascript code I write is really limited. And even then I use TypeScript most of the time. Anyway this is only a disclaimer because maybe I'm stating something that is obvious to you. It certainly wasn't to me :-)!

I had a really simple use case to solve: I needed to delete a specific item from an array .I didn’t know the exact function name anymore so I asked Google and got back with the delete operator.

This turns out to the wrong approach as the delete operation will delete a property from an object and set it to undefined:

	var arrayItems = ['a' , 'b' , 'c' ];
	arrayItems.length; // returns 3
	delete arrayItems[1]; // returns true
	arrayItems.length; // returns 3
	console.log(arrayItems); // [ 'a', undefined, 'c' ]

view raw delete.js hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The correct way is to use the splice function:

	var arrayItems = ['a' , 'b', 'c' ];
	arrayItems.length; // returns 3
	//Delete one item starting from position 1
	arrayItems.splice(1,1); // returns true
	arrayItems.length; // returns 2
	console.log(arrayItems); // [ 'a', 'c' ]

view raw splice.js hosted with ❤ by GitHub

I hope I never forget it anymore!