Delete positional parameters in Bash?

The best way, if you want to be able to pass on the parameters to another process, or handle space separated parameters, is to re-set the parameters:

$ x(){ echo "Parameter count before: $#"; set -- "${@:1:2}" "${@:4:8}"; echo "$@"; echo "Parameter count after: $#"; }$ x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Parameter count before: 81 2 4 5 6 7 8Parameter count after: 7

To test that it works with non-trivial parameters:

$ x $'a\n1' $'b\b2' 'c 3' 'd 4' 'e 5' 'f 6' 'g 7' $'h\t8'Parameter count before: 8a1 2 d 4 e 5 f 6 g 7 h   8Parameter count after: 7

(Yes, $'\b' is a backspace)

x(){    #CODE    params=( $* )    unset params[2]    set -- "${params[@]}"    echo "$@"}

Input:x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Output:1 2 4 5 6 7 8

From tldp

# The "unset" command deletes elements of an array, or entire array.unset colors[1]              # Remove 2nd element of array.                             # Same effect as   colors[1]=echo  ${colors[@]}           # List array again, missing 2nd element.unset colors                 # Delete entire array.                             #  unset colors[*] and                             #+ unset colors[@] also work.echo; echo -n "Colors gone."               echo ${colors[@]}            # List array again, now empty.