Swift Array – Remove First Element

To remove first element from Array in Swift, call remove(at:) method on this array and pass the index 0 for at parameter. Or call removeFirst() method on the array.

remove(at:) method removes the element at given index.

The syntax to call remove(at:) method on the array with index is

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arrayName.remove(at:index)

In this particular scenario, where we would like to remove the first element, the value of index we pass is 0.

The syntax to call removeFirst() method on the array is

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arrayName.removeFirst()

removeFirst() method removes and returns the first element of the array.

Examples

In the following program, we will take an array, and remove the first element using remove(at:) method.

main.swift

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var fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "mango", "guava"]
fruits.remove(at:0)
print(fruits)

Output

Swift Array - Remove First Element

The first element "apple" has been removed from the array fruits.

If the array is empty, removing first element using remove(at:) causes a runtime error as shown in the following example.

main.swift

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var fruits: [String] = []
fruits.remove(at:0)
print(fruits)

Output

Swift Array - Remove First Element when array is empty

Remove First Element using Array.removeFirst()

In the following example, we will use removeFirst() method and remove the first element in the array.

main.swift

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var fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "mango", "guava"]
fruits.removeFirst()
print(fruits)

Output

Swift Array - Remove First Element

Conclusion

In this Swift Tutorial, we learned how to remove first element from array in Swift.