JavaScript strings are immutable. This means that once the string was created it can’t be changed. When you need to remove the last character from a string in JavaScript, you should create a new string without this character.

How to delete last symbol in JS string using slice

const base = 'javascript, remove last char!'

const s = base.slice(0, -1);

console.log(s); // javascript, remove last char

The function slice returns a part of the string. We pass in two values, start and end. Eventually slice returns us a substring of base between start and end.

If end is a negative number, the lookup begins from the end of the string.

The statement

base.slice(0, -1);

Is the same as

base.slice(0, base.length - 1);

Use substring to remove the last element from a string in JS

As the function slice only returns us a substring and doesn’t mutate the original string, we can use the function substring to get the same outcome.

const base = 'javascript, remove last char!'

const s = base.substring(0, base.length - 1);

console.log(s); // javascript, remove last char

Take a note, though, that if you pass a negative number into substring as a second argument, you’ll get an empty string

base.substring(0, -1); // ''

The behavior is different from slice with regards to negative indicies.

Conclusion

Key points:

  • It’s impossible to chang strings in JavaScript after initialization
  • If you need to delete the last char of the string in JS, you should create a new string
  • You can use either slice or substring

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