HTMLTableRowElement: deleteCell() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The deleteCell() method of the HTMLTableRowElement interface removes a specific row cell from a given <tr>.

Syntax

deleteCell(index)

Parameters

index: The cell index of the cell to remove. If index is -1 or equal to the number of cells, the last cell of the row is removed.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

IndexSizeError DOMException: Thrown if index is greater than the number of cells or if it is smaller than -1.

Examples

This example uses HTMLTableRowElement.insertCell() to append a new cell to a row.

HTML

html

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>C1</th>
      <th>C2</th>
      <th>C3</th>
      <th>C4</th>
      <th>C5</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Cell 1</td>
      <td>Cell 2</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<button id="add">Add a cell</button>
<button id="remove">Remove last cell</button>
<div>This first row has <output>2</output> cell(s).</div>

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

th,
td,
table {
  border: 1px solid black;
}

button {
  margin: 1em 1em 1em 0;
}

JavaScript

// Obtain relevant interface elements
const bodySection = document.querySelectorAll("tbody")[0];
const row = bodySection.rows[0]; // Select the first row of the body section
const cells = row.cells; // The collection is live, therefore always up-to-date
const cellNumberDisplay = document.querySelectorAll("output")[0];

const addButton = document.getElementById("add");
const removeButton = document.getElementById("remove");

function updateCellNumber() {
  cellNumberDisplay.textContent = cells.length;
}

addButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Add a new cell at the end of the first row
  const newCell = row.insertCell();
  newCell.textContent = `Cell ${cells.length}`;

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

removeButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Delete the row from the body
  row.deleteCell(-1);

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # dom-tr-deletecell

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser