Question

I’m currently working with some data using Javascript that is in the form of an array. The array may contain an empty entry at the end, such as [1,2,]. In Google Chrome and Firefox, the length of that example would be 2; however, in IE, the length is 3.

In short: Internet Explorer is giving a different length for an array in Javascript than Google Chrome and Firefox. Is there a way to standardize this behavior across all browsers?

Code:

var a = [1,];
alert(a.length);

EDIT:

A lot of answers are saying not to have a trailing comma, however, the data is given to me in this way.

Answer 1

NEVER have trailing commas in IE. Period.

That goes for ARRAYs too

Javascript Browser Quirks – array.Length

To handle your edit this works (tested in in IE8):

if (a[a.length-1]==null) a.length--; // or a.pop()

For a safer test, please look at the other suggestion on this page: Length of Array Differs In Internet Explorer With Trailing Comma – DEMO HERE

By the way, never heard the words elision or elided before – learn something new here every day