How to remove the first element from an array in Swift

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to remove the first element from a array in Swift.

Removing the first element

To remove the first element from an array, we can use the built-in removeFirst() method in Swift.

Here is an example that removes the first element "apples" from the following fruits array.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]
fruits.removeFirst()

print(fruits)

Output:

["grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

Similarly, we can also use the remove(at:) method by passing the first element index as an argument to it.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

fruits.remove(at: 0)

print(fruits)

Note: The removeFirst() and remove(at:) methods modifies the original array.

If you want to keep your original array untouched, then you can use the dropFirst() method.

var fruits = ["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

print(fruits.dropFirst())

print(fruits)

Output:

["grapes", "pears", "oranges"]

["apples", "grapes", "pears", "oranges"] # original array

The dropFirst() method creates a new array instead of modifying the original array.