How to Get the First Character of a String in JavaScript

We can get the first character of a string in JavaScript easily using the String substring() method.

var firstCharacter = someString.substring(0,1);

In the code above, firstCharacter will be the first character of the string.

Let’s say we have the following JavaScript:

var someString = "This is some example text";
var newString = someString.substring(0,1);

In the above code, newString will have the value T after applying the substring method to the original string.

We can also get the first character of a string using the String slice() method.

var someString = "This is some example text";
var newString = someString.slice(0,1);

This code will provide the same results as the substring method did above.

Let’s take a look at another simple example.

Using JavaScript to Get and Remove the First Character of a String with a Click

In this simple example, we will have a really long string to start out. We will then provide a button to let the user remove the first character, or get the first character from that string as many times as they want.

Here is the HTML setup:

<div id="div1">
  <div id="updatedString"></div>
  <div id="click-me1" class="click-me" onclick="getFirstCharacter()">Get first character</div>
  <div id="click-me2" class="click-me" onclick="removeFirstCharacter()">Remove first character</div>
  <div id="results"></div>
</div>

First, we will populate the div #updatedString with a long string we will make up.

We will then add an onclick event to our #click-me1 div that will run a function we will create called getFirstCharacter(). Our function will get the first character of the string using the substring() method, and display it below using the innerHTML method.

We will also add an onclick event to our #click-me2 div that will run a function we will create called removeFirstCharacter(). Our function will remove the first character of the string using the substring() method. We will update the #updatedString div using the textContent property with the new string.

Here is the JavaScript code:

//Our string
var startingString = "This is a long string that we can remove the first character from as many times as we want by pressing the button below.";
  
//We will populate the div #updatedString with our string
document.getElementById("updatedString").textContent = startingString;

function getFirstCharacter(){
  
  //Get the first character of the string
  var firstCharacter = startingString.substring(0,1);
  
  //Display the character to the user
  document.getElementById("results").innerHTML = "The first character is: <b>" + firstCharacter + "</b>";
  
};

function removeFirstCharacter(){

  //We remove the first character of the string
  startingString = startingString.substring(1);

  //We will then update the div #updatedString with our new string
  document.getElementById("updatedString").textContent = startingString;

};

The final code and output for getting and removing the first character from a string using JavaScript is below:

Code Output:

Full Code:

<div id="div1">
  <div id="updatedString"></div>
  <div id="click-me1" class="click-me" onclick="getFirstCharacter()">Get first character</div>
  <div id="click-me2" class="click-me" onclick="removeFirstCharacter()">Remove first character</div>
  <div id="results"></div>
</div>

<script>

var startingString = "This is a long string that we can remove the first character from as many times as we want by pressing the button below.";
document.getElementById("updatedString").textContent = startingString;

function getFirstCharacter(){
  var firstCharacter = startingString.substring(0,1);
  document.getElementById("results").innerHTML = "The first character is: <b>" + firstCharacter + "</b>";
};

function removeFirstCharacter(){
  startingString = startingString.substring(1);
  document.getElementById("updatedString").textContent = startingString;

};

</script>

Hopefully this article has been useful for you to learn how to get the first character of a string in JavaScript.