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Function to Strip Out Blank Values

djhanson

Hi, I'm trying to write a simple JSL function to remove blank values from a list.
Can someone help me tweak this code? (it returns null to me)
thanks, DJ

myList={"apple","orange","banana","","grape","","plum"};
StripBlanks = function({x},
for(a=nitems(x),a>=1,a--,
if(
x[a]=="",
x=remove(x,a)
 
)
)
);
StripBlanks(myList);

Accepted answers

Jeff_Perkinson

You need to return x as the last statement in your function.

myList = {"apple", "orange", "banana", "", "grape", "", "plum"};
StripBlanks = Function( {x},
	For( a = N Items( x ), a >= 1, a--,
		If( x[a] == "",
			x = Remove( x, a )
		)
	);
	x;
);
StripBlanks( myList );

All comments

Jeff_Perkinson

You need to return x as the last statement in your function.

myList = {"apple", "orange", "banana", "", "grape", "", "plum"};
StripBlanks = Function( {x},
	For( a = N Items( x ), a >= 1, a--,
		If( x[a] == "",
			x = Remove( x, a )
		)
	);
	x;
);
StripBlanks( myList );

djhanson

Super! That was my issue!

Jeff_Perkinson

Glad that worked for you. I should point out that you don't really need to create a function to do that.

The Loc() function will give you the indices of the blanks in the list and then you can use Remove() or Remove From() to get rid them all at once.

myList = {"apple", "orange", "banana", "", "grape", "", "plum"};

blanks = Loc( mylist, "" ); // [4,6]

blanks = As List( blanks ); // {4, 6}

Remove From( mylist, blanks );

The only trick here is that Loc() returns a matrix and Remove() and Remove From() want a list argument, so you have to recast it As List().