VBScript Array Functions – DeleteFromArray, InArray

VBScript has a infamously weak implementation of array capabilities. There often comes situations where you’d like to manipulate an array and VBScript just doesn’t have the functionality built in natively.

One of the things that I need to do frequently is delete a value from an array. Well to do this you have too loop through the array and rebuild it as a new array. Since this is such a common task I wrote a little function to do it for me.

Other times I’d simply like to know if an array has a certain value within it. So I can add or remove it or simply act upon it. Well I wrote another one for that too called InArray. It will return a boolean letting you know if the string you are checking for exists within the array.

I will probably add to this later, if anyone has suggestions for additions to this please feel free to forward or submit your code. I’ll almost certainly add sorting code to this later, even though there is a dictionary object available to do that now from VBScript natively.

Function DeleteFromArray(aArray, vElementNumber)
  'This script is provided under the Creative Commons license located
  'at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ . It may not
  'be used for commercial purposes with out the expressed written consent
  'of NateRice.com
  ' This function will delete the specified element from
  ' the array passed to the function. For example:
  '   Array(0) = a
  '   Array(1) = b
  '   Array(2) = c
  '   Array(3) = d
  '
  ' To delete the 'b' from this array you'd simply call
  ' the function like this:
  '   Array = DeleteFromArray(Array, 1)

  Dim aNewArray
  ReDim aNewArray(0)
  Dim vLoopValue, vLimit
  
  vLoopValue = 0

  For Each sValue In aArray
    
    If vLoopValue <> vElementNumber Then
      If vLoopValue = 0 And vElementNumber <> 0 Then
        aNewArray(vLoopValue) = sValue 
      ElseIf vLoopValue = 1 And vElementNumber = 0 Then
        aNewArray(vLoopValue) = sValue
      Else
        vLimit = Ubound(aNewArray) + 1
        ReDim Preserve aNewArray(vLimit)
        aNewArray(Ubound(aNewArray)) = sValue
      End If
    End If

    vLoopValue = vLoopValue + 1
  Next
  DeleteFromArray = aNewArray
End Function

Function InArray(aArrayName, sStringToTest)
  'This script is provided under the Creative Commons license located
  'at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ . It may not
  'be used for commercial purposes with out the expressed written consent
  'of NateRice.com
  ' This function loops the array and returns a boolean
  ' depending on wether or not a string exists as one
  ' of the values within the array. For Example:
  '
  ' Array(0) = "blue"
  ' Array(1) = "black"
  ' Array(2) = "red"
  '
  ' InArray(Array, "blue") would return True
  ' InArray(Array, "green") would return False  
  
  If IsArray(aArrayName) Then
    For Each sArrayStringValue In aArrayName
      sArrayStringValue = sArrayStringValue & ""
      sStringToTest = sStringToTest & ""

      If sStringToTest = sArrayStringValue Then
        InArray = True
        Exit Function
      End If
    Next
  End If

  InArray = False
End Function