Usually there is no need to delete an array. Arrays are allocated when they are needed and are released when they are not needed anymore. However there may be some circumstances, when there is a need to explicitly delete an array and release the memory assigned to the array. To do this you have to use command undef. The name is the same as the function undef, but instead of returning the undefined value this command sets the variables listed after the command name to hold the undefined value. The format is
undef variable_list
The variable list may contain variables that are arrays, variables that hold string, integer or real values and may also contain array elements, like a[13], which is a variable itself. When you apply the command undef to a variable, which is not an array or reference the result is the same as assigning the undefined value to the variable. For example the following lines
undef A
A = undef
have the same effect unless A is an array or reference. However when the variable A is an array assigning to it the undefined value will make the first element of the array undefined and not the whole array. To explore the effects try to run the following program:
k[1] = 1
k[3] = 2
fun k
k = undef
fun k
undef k
fun k
sub fun(a)
print a,"\n"
print lbound(a),"\n"
print a[1]," ",a[2]," ",a[3]
print
print
end sub
After running it comment out the line undef k and compare the result running the program again.