JJUPIN/SIL - How to remove empty/null elements from an array?

[Błażej O_]

Hi there.

I'm struggling to remove null/empty elements from a string array. I can't find a way to remove such elements without sorting or converting to unique set. I will appreciate any hints how can I do the above operation.

Example code:

string source_string = "testelem1,,testelem2,,,testelem3,testelem2";

string[] my_array = split(source_string, ",");

I have tried :

•     deleteElement(my_array, "")
•     deleteElement(my_array, "null")
•     deleteElement(my_array, null)

None of the above worked.

So far the I have found only two possibilities, both messing up order of elements in original array thus not fitting my needs:

1. sort array, loop check 0th element for isNull() and remove it with deleteElementAt if true
2. convert to set of unique elements by arrayToSet, check 0th element if isNull() and remove it with deleteElementAt if true.

[FlorinM · Accepted solution]

Hi Blazej,

deleteElement actually works, but stops on first occurrence, so you'll need something like this:

number sz;
do {
    sz = size(arr);
    arr = deleteElement(arr, "");
} while(sz != size(arr));

Another option would be to use arrayDiff

arr = arrayDiff(arr, {""});

Note: your "my_array" is declared as string not array.

Hope this helps!

[Błażej O_]

Of course, I ate [] here :) arr = arrayDiff(arr, {""}); works perfectly! That's exactly what I've been looking for, thanks!

[Błażej O_]

Of course I could just loop through the whole original array and copy all not null elements to another array, but it seems a bit overkill with large arrays :)