Javascript: Remove Items from Array

I required some javascript for removing an item (or series of items) from an array. Thankfully, I found out how to do it from this thread in Google Groups.

e.g. (paste into HTML document):

<script language="javascript">
// this is the original array
var theArray = [17,2,5,675];
// these are the items I wish to remove from the array
var toRemove = [17,2];
// it can be done with one item only as well
// var toRemove = 5;

// adding it as a prototype object enables it to be used from any array
Array.prototype.removeItems = function(itemsToRemove) {

    if (!/Array/.test(itemsToRemove.constructor)) {
        itemsToRemove = [ itemsToRemove ];
    }

    var j;
    for (var i = 0; i < itemsToRemove.length; i++) {
        j = 0;
        while (j < this.length) {
            if (this[j] == itemsToRemove[i]) {
                this.splice(j, 1);
            } else {
                j++;
            }
        }
    }
}
theArray.removeItems(toRemove);
alert(theArray);
</script>

Thanks to Grant Wagner for this. It also can be applied to server-side ASP pages as well as client-side HTML (after setting JavaScript as the page language). However, there seems to be something wrong with an array of form elements (they are comma-space seperated i.e. "2, 5, 75, 120"), so it has to be split using var arItems = String(Request.Form("items")).split(", ")

NB. Array.splice is used, but is not supported by all browsers.

There is also a method of doing it without using splice (thanks to Dr John Stockton for this) in this thread. I have not implemented it yet - might use it as client side code.

var Delenda = [], j, n = 0, T, U // Undefined value

  for (j = 0 ; j < toRemove.length ; j++ )
    Delenda[toRemove[j]] = true                         // or 0 !

  for (j = 0 ; j < theArray.length ; j++ )     
    if ( Delenda[ T = theArray[j] ] === U ) theNewArray[n++] = T

Finally, there is a method using Regular Expressions (thanks go to Greg for this):

<script type='text/javascript'>
function removeVal(arr, valToRemove){
  // Normalize to a string like !val!!val!!val!
  var s = '!' + arr.join('!!') + '!';
  // Remove targeted values with delimiters
  s = s.replace(new RegExp('!' + valToRemove + '!', 'g'), '');
  // Remove delimiter added to end in step 1
  s = s.replace(/^!/, '');
  // Remove delimiter added to start in step 1
  s = s.replace(/!$/, '');
  // Convert to array
  return s.split('!!');
}

function test(){
  var arr = [2,1,2,2,5,7,12,15,21,2]; // Check case with end vals
  var s = arr.toString();
  arr = removeVal(arr, 2)
  alert(s + '\n' + arr.toString());
}
</script>

<button onclick='test()' />test()</button>