How to Get the First Character of a String

There are multiple methods of getting the first character of a string in JavaScript. Here are some easy methods presented below.

The charAt() Method

You should use the <kbd class="highlighted">charAt()</kbd> method at index 0 for selecting the first character of the string.

Javascript charAt method

The substring() Method

You can also use the substring() method to get the first character:

Javascript substring method

The slice() Method

However, if prefer to use substring, the slice() version is shorter:

Javascript slice method

And to get the last character, you can simply use:

Javascript slice method

The bracket notation [] Method

There is <kbd class="highlighted">[] bracket</kbd> notation method of rethrieving the first element:

Javascript [] bracket notation method

Unlike all above mentioned methods that return an empty string ('') for str = '' this method returns undefined:

Javascript empty string methods

String Methods

There are 3 methods used to extract a part of a string:

• slice(start, end) - extracts a part of a string and returns the extracted part in a new string.
• substring(start, end) - similar to <kbd class="highlighted">slice()</kbd> only it cannot accept negative indexes.
• substr() - <kbd class="highlighted">substr()</kbd> is similar to <kbd class="highlighted">slice()</kbd> except the second parameter specifies the length of the extracted part.

There are 2 methods of accessing an individual character in a string:

• charAt() - returns the character at a specified index (position) in a string.
• bracket notation [] - treas the string as an array-like object, where each individual character corresponds to a numerical index.