How to remove the last element from an array in Swift

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to remove the last element from a array in Swift.

Removing the last element

We can remove the last element from an array by using the built-in removeLast() method in Swift.

Here is an example, that removes the last element "oranges" from the following array.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

fruits.removeLast()

print(fruits)

Output:

["apples","grapes", "pears"]

Similarly, we can also use the popLast() method to remove the last element of an array.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

let last = fruits.popLast() ?? "Empty array"

print(fruits) // ["apples","grapes", "pears"]

Note: The removeLast() and popLast() methods modifies the original array instead of creating a new array.

If you want to keep your original array untouched then you can use the dropLast() method.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

print(fruits.dropLast())

print(fruits)

Output:

["apples","grapes", "pears"] # modified array

["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"] # original array

The dropLast() method creates a new array instead of modifying the original array.