javascript - String split returns an array with more elements than expected (empty elements)

Question

I don't understand this behaviour:

var string = 'a,b,c,d,e:10.';
var array = string.split ('.');

I expect this:

console.log (array); // ['a,b,c,d,e:10']
console.log (array.length); // 1

but I get this:

console.log (array); // ['a,b,c,d,e:10', '']
console.log (array.length); // 2

Why two elements are returned instead of one? How does split work?

Is there another way to do this?

Answer 1

You could add a filter to exclude the empty string.

var string = 'a,b,c,d,e:10.';
var array = string.split ('.').filter(function(el) {return el.length != 0});