How to Remove the Last Character from a String in JavaScript

If you’re doing a lot of data manipulation and formatting tasks, you’ll want to know how to remove the last character from a string in JavaScript. We like it because it makes string handling way more efficient. This post shows you how it works.

How to use theslice method?

You can easily remove the last character from a string by applying the slice method. This method takes two arguments: the start index and the end index. For removing the last character, set the start index to 0 and the end index to -1. The 0 index signifies the start of the string, whereas -1 tells the method to stop before the last character. Here's how to implement it:

let originalString = "Hello, world!";
let newString = originalString.slice(0, -1);
console.log(newString); // Outputs: "Hello, world"

Use the substring method as an alternative

Alternatively, the substring method allows you to remove the last character from a string by specifying the start and end indexes of the substring you want to extract. Set the start index to 0 and calculate the end index as originalString.length - 1 to exclude the last character. This approach produces the same result:

let originalString = "Hello, world!";
let newString = originalString.substring(0, originalString.length - 1);
console.log(newString); // Outputs: "Hello, world"

Both the slice and substring methods offer concise and effective ways to remove the last character from a string. By incorporating these techniques into your JavaScript projects, you can handle string data way more efficiently.