How to easily truncate an array with JavaScript?

Question

There is a slice method

let arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
arr = arr.slice(0, 4);
console.log(arr);

Will return the first four elements.

Don't forget to assign it back to your variable if you want to discard the other values.

Note: This is just regular javascript, no need for jquery.

(2 years later...) If you're truly looking to truncate an array, you can also use the length attribute:

var stooges = ["Moe", "Larry", "Shemp", "Curly", "Joe"];
stooges.length = 3; // now stooges is ["Moe", "Larry", "Shemp"]

Note: if you assign a length which is longer than current length, undefined array elements are introduced, as shown below.

var stooges = ["Moe", "Larry", "Shemp"];
stooges.length = 5;
alert(typeof stooges[4]); // alerts "undefined"

EDIT:

As @twhitehead mentioned below, the addition of undefined elements can be avoided by doing this:

var stooges = ["Moe", "Larry", "Shemp"];
stooges.length = Math.min(stooges.length, 5); 
alert(stooges.length)// alerts "3"

If you're asking how to truncate (modify an array by removing the elements from the end) then use splice:

var a1 = [2,4,6,8];
var a2 = a1.splice(-2,2); // a1=[2,4], a2=[6,8]

If you're asking how to retrieve a subset of an array without modifying the original, then use slice.

var a1 = [2,4,6,8];
var a2 = a1.slice(-2); // a1=[2,4,6,8], a2=[6,8]

Just remember splice modifies, slice accesses. Negative numbers as first arg indicate index from the end of the array.

Set .length property to a lower value.

Official documentation: Array.prototype.length

If you want to both get the elements as well as remove them from the array, use splice.

If you want to keep the elements in the array, use slice

If you want to selectively pull elements out of an array, you can use the jQuery.grep method.

(from the jQuery docs)

var arr = [ 1, 9, 3, 8, 6, 1, 5, 9, 4, 7, 3, 8, 6, 9, 1 ];

$("div").text(arr.join(", "));

arr = jQuery.grep(arr, function(n, i){
  return (n != 5 && i > 4);
});

$("p").text(arr.join(", "));

arr = jQuery.grep(arr, function (a) { return a != 9; });
$("span").text(arr.join(", "));