Remove empty elements from an array in Javascript

Simple ways:

var arr = [1,2,,3,,3,null,,0,,undefined,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,];

// (filter - JS 1.6 and above)
arr = arr.filter(function(n){ return n != undefined }); 

arr // [1, 2, 3, 3, 0, 4, 4, 5, 6]

//or - (only for arrays items which are numbers is numbers' strings)**
arr = arr.filter(Number) // [1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6]

// ES6 style (Firefox FTW)
arr.filter(n => true) // [1, false, 3, 3, null, 0, undefined, 4, 4, 5, 6]

// or if "null" values are to be removed:
arr.filter(n => n)

or - (only for single array items of type "text")

['','1','2',3,,'4',,undefined,,,'5'].join('').split(''); 
// output:  ["1","2","3","4","5"]

or - Classic way: simple iteration

var arr = [1,2,null, undefined,3,,3,,,0,,,[],,{},,5,,6,,,,],
    len = arr.length, i;

for(i = 0; i < len; i++ )
    arr[i] && arr.push(arr[i]);  // copy non-empty values to the end of the array

arr.splice(0 , len);  // cut the array and leave only the non-empty values

arr // [1,2,3,3,[],Object{},5,6]

via jQuery:

var arr = [1,2,,3,,3,,,0,,,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,];

arr = $.grep(arr,function(n){ return n == 0 || n });

arr // [1, 2, 3, 3, 0, 4, 4, 5, 6]

UPDATE - just another fast, cool way (using ES6):

var arr = [1,2,null, undefined,3,,3,,,0,,,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,], 
    temp = [];

for(let i of arr)
    i && temp.push(i); // copy each non-empty value to the 'temp' array

arr = temp;
delete temp; // discard the variable

arr // [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6]

Remove empty values

['foo', '',, ' ', true, [], [1], {}, undefined].filter(String)

// ["foo", " ", true, [1], Object {}, undefined]

Remove falsely values

Another method that removes the "falsey" values of empty string "", 0 and undefined

[1, 2,, 3,, 3,undefined,,"",false,null,0,NaN, 4," ", 4,true, 5,, 6,,,,].filter(Boolean);

// [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, " ", 4, true, 5, 6]

If you need to remove ALL empty values ("", null, undefined and 0):

arr = arr.filter(function(e){return e}); 

To remove empty values and Line breaks:

arr = arr.filter(function(e){ return e.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,"")});

Example:

arr = ["hello",0,"",null,undefined,1,100," "]  
arr.filter(function(e){return e});

Return:

["hello", 1, 100, " "]

UPDATE (based on Alnitak's comment)

In some situations you may want to keep "0" in the array and remove anything else (null, undefined and ""), this is one way:

arr.filter(function(e){ return e === 0 || e });

Return:

["hello", 0, 1, 100, " "]

Simply one liner:

[1, false, "", undefined, 2].filter(Boolean); // [1, 2]

or using underscorejs.org:

_.filter([1, false, "", undefined, 2], Boolean); // [1, 2]
// or even:
_.compact([1, false, "", undefined, 2]); // [1, 2]

If you've got Javascript 1.6 or later you can use Array.filter using a trivial return true callback function, e.g.:

arr = arr.filter(function() { return true; });

since .filter automatically skips missing elements in the original array.

The MDN page linked above also contains a nice error-checking version of filter that can be used in JavaScript interpreters that don't support the official version.

Note that this will not remove null entries nor entries with an explicit undefined value, but the OP specifically requested "missing" entries.

The clean way to do it.

var arr = [0,1,2,"Thomas","false",false,true,null,3,4,undefined,5,"end"];
arr = arr.filter(Boolean);
// [1, 2, "Thomas", "false", true, 3, 4, 5, "end"]

If using a library is an option I know underscore.js has a function called compact() http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/ it also has several other useful functions related to arrays and collections.

Here is an excerpt from their documentation:

_.compact(array)

Returns a copy of the array with all falsy values removed. In JavaScript, false, null, 0, "", undefined and NaN are all falsy.

_.compact([0, 1, false, 2, '', 3]);

=> [1, 2, 3]

Since nobody else mentioned it and most people have underscore included in their project you can also use _.without(array, *values);.

_.without(["text", "string", null, null, null, "text"], null)
// => ["text", "string", "text"]

With Underscore/Lodash:

General use case:

_.without(array, emptyVal, otherEmptyVal);
_.without([1, 2, 1, 0, 3, 1, 4], 0, 1);

With empties:

_.without(['foo', 'bar', '', 'baz', '', '', 'foobar'], '');
--> ["foo", "bar", "baz", "foobar"]

See lodash documentation for without.

@Alnitak

Actually Array.filter works on all browsers if you add some extra code. See below.

var array = ["","one",0,"",null,0,1,2,4,"two"];

function isempty(x){
if(x!=="")
    return true;
}
var res = array.filter(isempty);
document.writeln(res.toJSONString());
// gives: ["one",0,null,0,1,2,4,"two"]  

This is the code you need to add for IE, but filter and Functional programmingis worth is imo.

//This prototype is provided by the Mozilla foundation and
//is distributed under the MIT license.
//http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/LICENSES/mit.license

if (!Array.prototype.filter)
{
  Array.prototype.filter = function(fun /*, thisp*/)
  {
    var len = this.length;
    if (typeof fun != "function")
      throw new TypeError();

    var res = new Array();
    var thisp = arguments[1];
    for (var i = 0; i < len; i++)
    {
      if (i in this)
      {
        var val = this[i]; // in case fun mutates this
        if (fun.call(thisp, val, i, this))
          res.push(val);
      }
    }

    return res;
  };
}

You may find it easier to loop over your array and build a new array out of the items you want to keep from the array than by trying to loop and splice as has been suggested, since modifying the length of the array while it is being looped over can introduce problems.

You could do something like this:

function removeFalsyElementsFromArray(someArray) {
    var newArray = [];
    for(var index = 0; index < someArray.length; index++) {
        if(someArray[index]) {
            newArray.push(someArray[index]);
        }
    }
    return newArray;
}

Actually here is a more generic solution:

function removeElementsFromArray(someArray, filter) {
    var newArray = [];
    for(var index = 0; index < someArray.length; index++) {
        if(filter(someArray[index]) == false) {
            newArray.push(someArray[index]);
        }
    }
    return newArray;
}

// then provide one or more filter functions that will 
// filter out the elements based on some condition:
function isNullOrUndefined(item) {
    return (item == null || typeof(item) == "undefined");
}

// then call the function like this:
var myArray = [1,2,,3,,3,,,,,,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,];
var results = removeElementsFromArray(myArray, isNullOrUndefined);

// results == [1,2,3,3,4,4,5,6]

You get the idea - you could then have other types of filter functions. Probably more than you need, but I was feeling generous... ;)

What about this(ES6) : To remove Falsy value from an array.

var arr = [0,1,2,"test","false",false,true,null,3,4,undefined,5,"end"];

arr.filter((v) => (!!(v)==true));

//output:

//[1, 2, "test", "false", true, 3, 4, 5, "end"]

What about that:

js> [1,2,,3,,3,,,0,,,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,].filter(String).join(',')
1,2,3,3,0,4,4,5,6

I'm simply adding my voice to the above “call ES5's Array..filter() with a global constructor” golf-hack, but I suggest using Object instead of String, Boolean, or Number as suggested above.

Specifically, ES5's filter() already doesn't trigger for undefined elements within the array; so a function that universally returns true, which returns all elements filter() hits, will necessarily only return non-undefined elements:

> [1,,5,6,772,5,24,5,'abc',function(){},1,5,,3].filter(function(){return true})
[1, 5, 6, 772, 5, 24, 5, 'abc', function (){}, 1, 5, 3]

However, writing out ...(function(){return true;}) is longer than writing ...(Object); and the return-value of the Object constructor will be, under any circumstances, some sort of object. Unlike the primitive-boxing-constructors suggested above, no possible object-value is falsey, and thus in a boolean setting, Object is a short-hand for function(){return true}.

> [1,,5,6,772,5,24,5,'abc',function(){},1,5,,3].filter(Object)
[1, 5, 6, 772, 5, 24, 5, 'abc', function (){}, 1, 5, 3]

When using the highest voted answer above, first example, i was getting individual characters for string lengths greater than 1. Below is my solution for that problem.

var stringObject = ["", "some string yay", "", "", "Other string yay"];
stringObject = stringObject.filter(function(n){ return n.length > 0});

Instead of not returning if undefined, we return if length is greater than 0. Hope that helps somebody out there.

Returns

["some string yay", "Other string yay"]

This works, I tested it in AppJet (you can copy-paste the code on its IDE and press "reload" to see it work, don't need to create an account)

/* appjet:version 0.1 */
function Joes_remove(someArray) {
    var newArray = [];
    var element;
    for( element in someArray){
        if(someArray[element]!=undefined ) {
            newArray.push(someArray[element]);
        }
    }
    return newArray;
}

var myArray2 = [1,2,,3,,3,,,0,,,4,,4,,5,,6,,,,];

print("Original array:", myArray2);
print("Clenased array:", Joes_remove(myArray2) );
/*
Returns: [1,2,3,3,0,4,4,5,6]
*/

Another way to do it is to take advantage of the length property of the array : pack the non-null items on the 'left' of the array, then reduce the length. It is an in-place algorithm -does not allocates memory, too bad for the garbage collector-, and it has very good best/average/worst case behaviour.

This solution, compared to others here, is between 2 to 50 times faster on Chrome, and 5 to 50 times faster on Firefox, as you might see here : http://jsperf.com/remove-null-items-from-array

The code below adds the non-enumerable 'removeNull' method to the Array, which returns 'this' for daisy-chaining :

var removeNull = function() {
    var nullCount = 0           ;
    var length    = this.length ;
    for (var i=0, len=this.length; i<len; i++) { if (!this[i]) {nullCount++} }
    // no item is null
    if (!nullCount) { return this}
    // all items are null
    if (nullCount == length) { this.length = 0; return this }
    // mix of null // non-null
    var idest=0, isrc=length-1;
    length -= nullCount ;                
    while (true) {
         // find a non null (source) slot on the right
         while (!this[isrc])  { isrc--; nullCount--; } 
         if    (!nullCount) { break }       // break if found all null
         // find one null slot on the left (destination)
         while ( this[idest]) { idest++  }  
         // perform copy
         this[idest]=this[isrc];
         if (!(--nullCount)) {break}
         idest++;  isrc --; 
    }
    this.length=length; 
    return this;
};  

Object.defineProperty(Array.prototype, 'removeNull', 
                { value : removeNull, writable : true, configurable : true } ) ;

Filtering out invalid entries with a regular expression

array = array.filter(/\w/);
filter + regexp

foo = [0, 1, 2, "", , false, 3, "four", null]

foo.filter(function(e) {
    return e === 0 ? '0' : e
})

returns

[0, 1, 2, 3, "four"]

'Misusing' the for ... in (object-member) loop. => Only truthy values appear in the body of the loop.

// --- Example ----------
var field = [];

field[0] = 'One';
field[1] = 1;
field[3] = true;
field[5] = 43.68;
field[7] = 'theLastElement';
// --- Example ----------

var originalLength;

// Store the length of the array.
originalLength = field.length;

for (var i in field) {
  // Attach the truthy values upon the end of the array. 
  field.push(field[i]);
}

// Delete the original range within the array so that
// only the new elements are preserved.
field.splice(0, originalLength);

Nice ... very nice We can also replace all array values like this

Array.prototype.ReplaceAllValues = function(OldValue,newValue)
{
    for( var i = 0; i < this.length; i++ )  
    {
        if( this[i] == OldValue )       
        {
            this[i] = newValue;
        }
    }
};

Here is an example using variadic behavior & ES2015 fat arrow expression:

Array.prototype.clean = function() {
  var args = [].slice.call(arguments);
  return this.filter(item => args.indexOf(item) === -1);
};

// Usage
var arr = ["", undefined, 3, "yes", undefined, undefined, ""];
arr.clean(undefined); // ["", 3, "yes", ""];
arr.clean(undefined, ""); // [3, "yes"];

The best way to remove empty elements, is to use Array.prototype.filter(), as already mentioned in other answers.

Unfortunately, Array.prototype.filter() is not supported by IE<9. If you still need to support IE8 or an even older version of IE, you could use the following polyfill to add support for Array.prototype.filter() in these browsers :

if (!Array.prototype.filter) {
  Array.prototype.filter = function(fun/*, thisArg*/) {
    'use strict';
    if (this === void 0 || this === null) {
      throw new TypeError();
    }
    var t = Object(this);
    var len = t.length >>> 0;
    if (typeof fun !== 'function') {
      throw new TypeError();
    }
    var res = [];
    var thisArg = arguments.length >= 2 ? arguments[1] : void 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
      if (i in t) {
        var val = t[i];
        if (fun.call(thisArg, val, i, t)) {
          res.push(val);
        }
      }
    }
    return res;
  };
}

How about doing it this way

// Removes all falsy values 
arr = arr.filter(function(val) {
    var x = Boolean(val);
    return x == true;
  });

If anyone is looking for cleaning the whole Array or Object this might help.

var qwerty = {
    test1: null,
    test2: 'somestring',
    test3: 3,
    test4: {},
    test5: {
        foo: "bar"
    },
    test6: "",
    test7: undefined,
    test8: " ",
    test9: true,
    test10: [],
    test11: ["77","88"],
    test12: {
        foo: "foo",
        bar: {
            foo: "q",
            bar: {
                foo:4,
                bar:{}
            }
        },
        bob: {}
    }
}

var asdfg = [,,"", " ", "yyyy", 78, null, undefined,true, {}, {x:6}, [], [2,3,5]];

function clean_data(obj) {
    for (var key in obj) {
        // Delete null, undefined, "", " "
        if (obj[key] === null || obj[key] === undefined || obj[key] === "" || obj[key] === " ") {
            delete obj[key];
        }
        // Delete empty object
        // Note : typeof Array is also object
        if (typeof obj[key] === 'object' && Object.keys(obj[key]).length <= 0) {
            delete obj[key];
        }
        // If non empty object call function again
        if(typeof obj[key] === 'object'){
            clean_data(obj[key]);
        }
    }
    return obj;
}

var objData = clean_data(qwerty);
console.log(objData);
var arrayData = clean_data(asdfg);
console.log(arrayData);

Output:

Removes anything that is null, undefined, "", " ", empty object or empty array

jsfiddle here

This one will only remove empty values and not falsey ones, which I think is more desirable.

There is an option to also remove null values.

This method should be much faster than using splice.

    function cleanArray(a, removeNull) {
        var i, l, temp = [];
        l = a.length;
        if (removeNull) {
            for (i = 0; i < l; i++) {
                if (a[i] !== undefined && a[i] !== null) {
                    temp.push(a[i]);
                }
            }
        } else {
            for (i = 0; i < l; i++) {
                if (a[i] !== undefined) {
                    temp.push(a[i]);
                }
            }
        }
        a.length = 0;
        l = temp.length;
        for (i = 0; i < l; i++) {
            a[i] = temp[i];
        }
        temp.length = 0;
        return a;
    }
    var myArray = [1, 2, , 3, , 3, , , 0, , null, false, , NaN, '', 4, , 4, , 5, , 6, , , , ];
    cleanArray(myArray);
    myArray;

You'll have to loop and then splice()

I needed to do this same task and came upon this thread. I ended up using the array "join" to create a string using a "_" separator, then doing a bit of regex to:-

1. replace "__" or more with just one "_",
2. replace preceding "_" with nothing "" and similarly 
3. replace and ending "_" with nothing ""

...then using array "split" to make a cleaned-up array:-

var myArr = new Array("","","a","b","","c","","","","","","","","","e","");
var myStr = "";

myStr = myArr.join("_");

myStr = myStr.replace(new RegExp(/__*/g),"_");
myStr = myStr.replace(new RegExp(/^_/i),"");
myStr = myStr.replace(new RegExp(/_$/i),"");
myArr = myStr.split("_");

alert("myArr=" + myArr.join(","));

...or in 1 line of code:-

var myArr = new Array("","","a","b","","c","","","","","","","","","e","");

myArr = myArr.join("_").replace(new RegExp(/__*/g),"_").replace(new RegExp(/^_/i),"").replace(new RegExp(/_$/i),"").split("_");

alert("myArr=" + myArr.join(","));

...or, extending the Array object :-

Array.prototype.clean = function() {
  return this.join("_").replace(new RegExp(/__*/g),"_").replace(new RegExp(/^_/i),"").replace(new RegExp(/_$/i),"").split("_");
};

var myArr = new Array("","","a","b","","c","","","","","","","","","e","");

alert("myArr=" + myArr.clean().join(","));

This is another way to do it:

var arr = ["a", "b", undefined, undefined, "e", undefined, "g", undefined, "i", "", "k"]
var cleanArr = arr.join('.').split(/\.+/);

Try this. Pass it your array and it will return with empty elements removed. *Updated to address the bug pointed out by Jason

function removeEmptyElem(ary) {
    for (var i = ary.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
        if (ary[i] == undefined)  {
            ary.splice(i, 1);
        }       
    }
    return ary;
}