The shift() method removes the first element from an array and returns that element.
Example
let languages = ["English", "Java", "Python", "JavaScript"]; // removes the first element of the array let first = languages.shift(); console.log(first); console.log(languages); // Output: English // [ 'Java', 'Python', 'JavaScript' ] shift() Syntax
The syntax of the shift() method is:
arr.shift() Here, arr is an array.
shift() Parameters
The shift() method does not accept any arguments.
shift() Return Value
- Removes the first element from
arrayand returns that value. - Returns
undefinedif the array is empty.
After removing the element at the 0th index, it shifts other values to consecutive indexes down.
Notes:
- This method changes the original array and its length.
- To remove the last element of an array, use the JavaScript Array pop() method.
Example: Using shift() method
var languages = ["JavaScript", "Python", "Java", "C++", "Lua"]; var shifted = languages.shift(); console.log(languages); // [ 'Python', 'Java', 'C++', 'Lua' ] console.log(shifted); // JavaScript // shift returns any type of object var numbers = [ [1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [-5, -4, -3], ]; console.log(numbers.shift()); // [ 1, 2, 3 ] console.log(numbers); // [ [ 4, 5, 6 ], [ -5, -4, -3 ] ] Output
[ 'Python', 'Java', 'C++', 'Lua' ] JavaScript [ 1, 2, 3 ] [ [ 4, 5, 6 ], [ -5, -4, -3 ] ]
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