Remove Whitespace-only Array Elements

Question

Since using array.splice modifies the array in-place, how can I remove all whitespace-only elements from an array without throwing an error? With PHP we have preg_grep but I

Answer 1

Just simply do this example

// this is you array 
let array = ["foo","bar","",""]

// remove blanks in array 
let array_new_value = array.join(" ").trim().split(' ');

// Print to know if really works 
console.log(array_new_value);

I hope this helps you!!

Answer 2

Another filter based variation - reusable (function)

    function removeWhiteSpaceFromArray(array){
    return array.filter((item) => item != ' ');
}

Answer 3

a="remove white spaces"

a.split(' ').join('').split('');

It returns an array of all characters in {a="remove white spaces"} with no 'space' character.

You can test the output separately for each method: split() and join().

Answer 4

And for a new generation (namely ES2015):

['1', ' ', 'c'].filter(item => item.trim() !== '')

More on trim()

Answer 5

A better way to "remove whitespace-only elements from an array".

var array = ['1', ' ', 'c'];

array = array.filter(function(str) {
    return /\S/.test(str);
});

Explanation:

Array.prototype.filter returns a new array, containing only the elements for which the function returns true (or a truthy value).

/\S/ is a regex that matches a non-whitespace character. /\S/.test(str) returns whether str has a non-whitespace character.

Answer 6

You removed an item from the array which reduced the array's length. Your loop continued, skipped some indexes (those which were down-shifted into the removed index), and eventually attempted to access an index outside of the new range.

Try this instead:

var src = ["1"," ","2","3"];
var i = src.length;    
while(i--) !/\S/.test(src[i]) && src.splice(i, 1);
console.log(src);