.removeData() will not remove the actual data-* attributes from the DOM element. To actually remove an attribute, you must use removeAttr()

Please see the third fiddle from the original ticket: http://jsfiddle.net/mKPYN/4/

For clarification: the third fiddle from the original ticket appears to work, but only because the script errors out before it gets to the line where it would update the DOM.

jQuery will remove data properties that it has created with data() (these are not placed on the DOM element itself), but will not remove data-* attributes. The extent of jQuery's involvement with data-* attributes is a read-only relationship.

http://jsfiddle.net/rwaldron/Zc98U/2/

The fiddle was using 1.6.4 and the api page is pretty clear that arrays are a 1.7 feature.

I have updated the .removeData() page to make it excruciatingly explicitly incredibly verbosely clear that we don't touch data- attributes with this api. There is a whole article that says more about the whole topic:

http://www.learningjquery.com/2011/09/using-jquerys-data-apis

Thank you, I did overlook the "version added: 1.7" on the api documentation, I didn't realize the documentation included unreleased features.

Well jQuery 1.7 is now shipping, as of 10 minutes ago. The docs were updated yesterday. If we don't update the docs before we ship then people won't know what is new. It's hard to do it all simultaneously.