Are you sure you need an array? If you just need a structure where you can refer to elements by their value, you'll be much better off with a hash:<code? %a=(a=>2,b=>1,c=>1,d=>1); # a hash can't have two elements which are the same </code>

To see if an element exists in a hash, you check $a{'b'} for instance. To delete an element, you simply say delete($a{'b'});

For an array which might have more than one element the same ( but where order of elements isn't important) you could keep a count of elements in each hash value, and decrement it when you delete the element - then use delete only if the value reaches zero.

If you must use an array (due to other things you didn't talk about needing an array), then splice is your best bet, as was mentioned above: but you'll have to write a routine that scans through the elements and returns the index of the desired element.

In reply to Re: Array element deletion by matija
in thread Array element deletion by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.