How to Remove the First Character From String in JavaScript ?
In this tutorial, we will learn about remove the first character from a string in JavaScript. In JavaScript, removing the first character involves eliminating the initial character to obtain a new string without the first character. This operation is commonly needed when manipulating strings in various programming tasks.
Remove the First Character from the String in JavaScript
We can remove the first character from a string in JavaScript using various methods. Here are a few approaches:
Using substring()
Using slice()
Using substr()
Using Regular Expression
By using substring() method
The substring() method in JavaScript is used to extract a portion of a string, starting from a specified index and extending up to the end of the string or another specified index. To remove the first character from a string using substring(), we need to specify the starting index as 1, which effectively excludes the first character from the resulting substring.
Syntax:
string.substring(start);
string: The original string from which the substring will be extracted.
start: The index from which the extraction should begin. The character at this index will not be included in the resulting substring.
Example:
// Example of removing the first character from a string using substring()
function removeFirstCharacter(str) {
return str.substring(1);
}
const originalString = "Developerhelps";
const modifiedString = removeFirstCharacter(originalString);
console.log(modifiedString);
Output:
eveloperhelps
By using slice() method
The slice() method in JavaScript can be used to remove the first character from a string by extracting a portion of the original string starting from a specified index and returning the resulting substring.
originalString is the string from which you want to remove the first character.
startIndex is the index from which the extraction should begin. If the startIndex is not provided, the slice() method starts from index 0 (the first character).
Example:
// Using slice() method to remove the first character from a string
const originalString = "Developerhelps";
const modifiedString = originalString.slice(1);
console.log(modifiedString);
Output:
eveloperhelps
By using substr() method
The substr() method in JavaScript is used to extract a portion of a string, starting from a specified position (index), and returning the desired number of characters. To remove the first character from a string, we can utilize the substr() method by specifying an index of 1, which effectively skips the first character and gives us the rest of the string.
Syntax:
string.substr(startIndex, length)
startIndex: The index (zero-based) from which the extraction should begin. To remove the first character, set it to 1.
length: Optional. The number of characters to extract from the original string. If not specified, substr() will extract all characters from the starting index to the end of the string.
Example:
// Example of removing the first character from a string using substr()
function removeFirstCharacter(str) {
return str.substr(1);
}
const originalString = "Developerhelps";
const modifiedString = removeFirstCharacter(originalString);
console.log(modifiedString);
Output:
eveloperhelps
By using Regular Expression
The regular expression is a pattern used to match character combinations in strings. In JavaScript, regular expressions are defined between two forward slashes (/…/), and they can be used with the replace() method to modify strings based on matching patterns. Regular expressions provide powerful pattern-matching capabilities, and in this case, we can create a pattern that matches the first character and replace it with an empty string.
Syntax:
function removeFirstCharacter(str) {
return str.replace(/^./, '');
}
The replace() method is called on the input string (str) and takes two arguments.
The first argument is the regular expression pattern ^.. The ^ represents the beginning of the string, and . matches any character.
As a result, the regular expression ^. matches the first character of the string.
The second argument is an empty string '', which effectively removes the matched first character.
The replace() method replaces the first character that matches the pattern with an empty string, effectively removing it from the string.
