How to Remove First and Last Element in Array in JavaScript

In JavaScript, you may often encounter complex codes based on arrays. These types of code include various functionalities which need not apply on every other array repeatedly. For instance, when you want to delete some unnecessary data from the array or create a new array based on the existing array elements. In such cases, removing the array’s first and last element can help you out.

This article will provide the procedure to remove the first and last array’s element in JavaScript.

How to Remove/Omit First and Last Array Elements in JavaScript?

To remove/omit the first and last elements in the given array in JavaScript, you can use:

• “shift()” and “pop()” methods
• “slice()” method

We will now go through each of the mentioned methods one by one!

Method 1: Remove/Omit First and Last Array Elements in JavaScript Using shift() and pop() Methods

In JavaScript, the “shift()” method is used to omit the first array element. Whereas the “pop()” method omits the last array element. These methods can be used in combination to remove the first and last array elements.

Syntax

Here, “array” refers to a defined array on which the shift() and pop() methods will be applied to remove the first and last array elements, respectively.

Look at the stated example for the demonstration.

Example

In the following example, initialize an array named “remArr” with integer and string value in it:

Now, we will apply the “shift()” method to remove the first element “1” from an array and display it on the console using the “console.log()” method:

After that, we will use the “pop()” method to remove the last element “a” from an array and display it:

Lastly, print out the update array on the console:

Output

Method 2: Remove First and Last Array Elements in JavaScript Using slice() Method

In JavaScript, the “slice()” method slices up the array elements and returns them as a new array. You can apply this method to slice the first and last array elements by accessing their indexes and removing them from an array.

Syntax

Here, “start” and “end” refer to the first and last index of the array.

The following example explains the stated concept:

Example

Now, we will apply the “slice()” method to the “remArr” string and refer to the start and end indexes “1” and “-1”, respectively. This will result in removing the elements at first and last indexes from the given array:

Lastly, we will display the resultant array on the console:

Output

We have provided all the simplest methods to remove the first and the last element in the array in JavaScript.

Conclusion

For removing the first and the last array elements, you can use the “shift()” and “pop()” methods for removing the first and last elements in an array respectively and the “slice()” method to specify the index of the element in its argument, which needs to be removed. Both methods change the length of the original array. This write-up explained the methods to remove the first and last array elements in JavaScript.