Editing Rope (data structure) (section)

=== Delete ===
: ''Definition:'' <code>Delete(i, j)</code>: delete the substring {{math|''C<sub>i</sub>'', …, ''C''<sub>''i'' + ''j'' − 1</sub>}}, from ''s'' to form a new string {{math|''C''<sub>1</sub>, …, ''C''<sub>''i'' − 1</sub>, ''C''<sub>''i'' + ''j''</sub>, …, ''C<sub>m</sub>''}}.
: ''Time complexity:'' {{tmath|O(\log N)}}.

This operation can be done by two <code>Split()</code> and one <code>Concat()</code> operation. First, split the rope in three, divided by ''i''-th and ''i+j''-th character respectively, which extracts the string to delete in a separate node. Then concatenate the other two nodes.

<syntaxhighlight lang="java">
@Override
public RopeLike delete(int start, int length) {
    val lhs = split(start);
    val rhs = split(start + length);
    return rebalance(new RopeLikeTree(lhs.fst, rhs.snd));
}
</syntaxhighlight>