Remove the last N Characters from a String in JavaScript

# Table of Contents

1. Remove the last N Characters from a String in JavaScript
2. Remove the last N Characters from a String using String.substring()
3. Remove the last N characters from a string conditionally

# Remove the last N Characters from a String in JavaScript

To remove the last N characters from a string, call the slice() method with a start index of 0 and an end index of -N.

For example, str.slice(0, -2) will return a new string with the last 2 characters of the original string removed.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

// ✅ Remove the last 2 characters from a string
const removeLast2 = str.slice(0, -2);
console.log(removeLast2); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.c

// ✅ Remove the last 3 characters from a string
const removeLast3 = str.slice(0, -3);
console.log(removeLast3); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

The String.slice() method extracts a section of a string and returns it, without modifying the original string.

The String.slice() method takes the following arguments:

The String.slice() method can be passed a negative index to count backward.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

// ✅ Remove the last 3 characters from a string
console.log(str.slice(0, -3)); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

Using an end index of -3 and str.length - 3 is the same.

We instruct the slice() method to go up to, but not including the last 3 characters in the string.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

// ✅ Remove the last 3 characters from a string
const removeLast3 = str.slice(0, -3);
console.log(removeLast3); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

// -------------------------------------------------

// ✅ Same as above
const removeLast3_ = str.slice(0, str.length - 3);
console.log(removeLast3_); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

Note that the String.slice() method doesn't change the original string, it returns a new string. Strings are immutable in JavaScript.

If you try to remove more characters than there are in the string, the slice() method returns an empty string.

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const str = 'bobby';

// ✅ Remove the last 100 characters from a string
const removeLast100 = str.slice(0, -100);
console.log(removeLast100); // 👉️ ""

We tried to remove the last 100 characters from a string that only contains 5 characters, so the slice() method returned an empty string.

If you have to do this often, define a reusable function.

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function removeLastNchars(str, n) {
  return str.slice(0, -n);
}

const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

const removeLast2chars = removeLastNchars(str, 2);
console.log(removeLast2chars); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.c

const removelast3chars = removeLastNchars(str, 3);
console.log(removelast3chars); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

The removeLastNchars function takes a string and n as parameters and removes the last N characters from the string.

# Remove the last N Characters from a String using String.substring()

Alternatively, you can use the String.substring() method.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

// ✅ Remove the last 2 characters from a string
const removeLast2 = str.substring(0, str.length - 2);
console.log(removeLast2); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.c

// ✅ Remove the last 3 characters from a string
const removeLast3 = str.substring(0, str.length - 3);
console.log(removeLast3); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

The String.substring() method returns a slice of the string from the start index to the excluding end index.

The method takes the following parameters:

Notice that the substring() method doesn't support negative indexing.

The end index is exclusive (up to, but not including), so specifying an end index of str.length - 2 means "go up to, but not including the last 2 characters of the string".

We used the slice() and substring() methods in a similar way to remove the last N characters from a string.

However, there are a couple of differences between the String.substring() and the String.slice() methods:

• The substring() method swaps its start and end index if the start index is greater than the end index. The slice() method returns an empty string in this case.

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const str = 'bobby';

console.log(str.substring(3, 0)); // 👉️ bob

console.log(str.slice(3, 0)); // 👉️ ''

• If either of both arguments passed to substring() are negative, they are treated as if they were 0.

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const str = 'bobby';

console.log(str.substring(-3)); // 👉️ bobby

console.log(str.slice(-3)); // 👉️ bby

When given a negative index, the slice() method counts backward from the end of the string to find the indexes.

The slice() method is implemented more intuitively and should be your approach.

# Remove the last N characters from a string conditionally

Use the String.replace() method to remove the last N characters from a string conditionally.

The method will only remove the last N characters from the string if the string ends with the specified characters.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

// ✅ remove the last 2 characters from a string conditionally
const removeLast2 = str.replace(/om$/, '');
console.log(removeLast2); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.c

// ✅ remove the last 3 characters from a string conditionally
const removeLast3 = str.replace(/com$/, '');
console.log(removeLast3); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.

The String.replace() method returns a new string with one, some, or all matches of a regular expression replaced with the provided replacement.

The method takes the following parameters:

The first argument we passed to the String.replace() method is a regular expression.

The forward slashes / / mark the beginning and end of the regular expression.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

const removeLast2 = str.replace(/om$/, '');
console.log(removeLast2); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.c

We then specified the characters om and a dollar sign $.

The dollar sign $ matches the end of the input.

In other words, the om characters are matched only if they are at the end of the string.

The second argument we passed to the replace() method is the replacement string.

We replace the match with an empty string in order to remove the characters.

If the string doesn't end with the specified characters, the entire string is returned as is.

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const str = 'bobbyhadz.com';

const result = str.replace(/bobby$/, '');
console.log(result); // 👉️ bobbyhadz.com

The String.replace() method returns a new string with the matches of the pattern replaced. The method doesn't change the original string.

Strings are immutable in JavaScript.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• Remove everything after a specific Character in JavaScript
• Remove First and Last Characters from a String in JavaScript
• Remove the first N characters from a String in JavaScript
• Remove all non-alphanumeric Characters from a String in JS
• Remove special Characters from a String in JavaScript