apolopena/bash-remove-element-from-an-array.md

## bash-remove-element-from-an-array.md

      
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              bash-remove-element-from-an-array.md
            
          
    Remove an element from an array

Arrays in bash were not designed for use as mutable data structures. They are primarily used for storing lists of items in a single variable without needing to waste a character as a delimiter (e.g., to store a list of strings which can contain whitespace). We can however remove an element from an array by looping through the array and rebuilding it as a temporary array, set the array to the temporary array and then finally unset the temporary array.
#!/bin/bash

example() {
 local i args tmp_args=()
 args=("$@")
 echo "${#args[@]} args before the filter: ${args[*]}"
 if  [[ " ${args[*]} " =~ " --load-deps-locally " ]]; then
   for i in "${args[@]}"; do [[ $i != '--load-deps-locally' ]] && tmp_args+=("$i"); done
 fi
 args=("${tmp_args[@]}"); unset tmp_args
 echo "${#args[@]} args after the filter: ${args[*]}"
}

example foo bar baz --load-deps-locally foobarbaz
# Outputs:
#   5 args before the filter: foo bar baz --load-deps-locally foobarbaz
#   4 args after the filter: foo bar baz foobarbaz