Magento - remove block using update XML

Question

How do I use a layout xml file to remove an already existing block? Specifically, I want to remove the block named \"currency\" from the block named \"top.switches\". It is bein

Answer 1

There are two methods to remove a block defined in one layout xml file, through another xml file:

    
        currency
    

And the way you are conventionally expected to do it:

You can find an explanation of the various layout xml elements here, but it doesn't cover the methods available to the action tag. For that, you need to look at the block class app/code/core/Mage/Core/Block/Abstract.php, which features all sorts of useful functions such as unsetChild, unsetCallChild, insert, sortChildren, etc.