table.remove

val = table.remove (t, pos)

Removes the element at position 'pos' from the table, returning the value of the removed element.

If 'pos' is omitted it defaults to the end of the table (n), thus removing the last element.

t = { "the", "quick", "brown", "fox" }
print (table.remove (t, 3))
table.foreachi (t, print)

 -->
 
brown
1 the
2 quick
3 fox

The Lua authors recommend using this method for removing from the end of a table nowadays:

t [#t] = nil  -- remove last entry

Note that for other keys (eg. strings) you simply assign nil to the element to remove it. For example:

t = {}
t.foo = "bar"  -- add item
t.foo = nil    -- remove item