What is the 'right' way of deleting array elements in Perl?

Question

I have an array containing a set of elements. The order of elements is irrelevant - I use an array since it's the simplest data structure I know in Perl.

my @arr = ...
while (some condition) {
    # iterate over @arr and remove all elements which meet some criteria
    # (which depends on $i)
}

I know of splice() but I think it's not good using it while iterating. delete for array elements seems deprecated. Perhaps use grep on @arr into itself (@arr = grep {...} @arr)?

What is the best practice here?

Perhaps use a hash (although I don't really need it)?

possible duplicate of What is the best way to delete a value from an array in Perl? — Matthew Simoneau
– Matthew Simoneau, Commented Apr 10, 2014 at 20:53

DVK · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-24 14:42:26Z

7

Your idea of using grep is good

@arr = grep { cond($i++); } @arr;

answered Nov 24, 2010 at 14:42

DVK

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Eugene Yarmash · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-14 20:13:47Z

7

According to the docs, calling delete on array values is deprecated and likely to be removed in a future version of Perl.

Alternatively, you can build a list of needed indices and assign the slice to the original array:

@arr = @arr[ @indices ];

You can read more about slices in perldata.

edited Apr 14, 2012 at 20:13

answered Nov 24, 2010 at 14:40

Eugene Yarmash

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