Get the First and Last Elements of an Array in JavaScript

# Table of Contents

1. Get the First and Last Elements of an Array in JavaScript
2. Get the First and Last Elements of an Array using Array.at()

# Get the First and Last Elements of an Array in JavaScript

To get the first and last elements of an array, access the array at index 0 and the last index.

For example, arr[0] returns the first element, whereas arr[arr.length - 1] returns the last element of the array.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const first = arr[0];
console.log(first); // 👉️ a

const last = arr[arr.length - 1];
console.log(last); // 👉️ d

You can get the element by accessing the array at index 0.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const first = arr[0];
console.log(first); // 👉️ a

To get the index of the last element, we subtract 1 from the array's length, because the first element in the array has an index of 0.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const last = arr[arr.length - 1];
console.log(last); // 👉️ d

If you had to get the second last element of an array, you would subtract 2 from the array's length.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const last = arr[arr.length - 2];
console.log(last); // 👉️ c

Trying to access an array element at an index that doesn't exist doesn't throw an error, it returns undefined.

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const arr = [];

const first = arr[0];
console.log(first); // 👉️ undefined

const last = arr[arr.length - 1];
console.log(last); // 👉️ undefined

# Get the First and Last Elements of an Array using Array.at()

You can also use the Array.at() method.

For example, arr.at(0) returns the first element and arr.at(-1) returns the last array element.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const first = arr.at(0);
console.log(first); // 👉️ a

const last = arr.at(-1);
console.log(last); // 👉️ d

We used the Array.at method to get the first and last elements in an array.

To get the first element, simply pass 0 to the Array.at() method.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const first = arr.at(0);
console.log(first); // 👉️ a

The method supports negative integers to count backward. For example, -1 returns the last element in the array and -2 returns the second last element.

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'];

const last = arr.at(-1);
console.log(last); // 👉️ d

const secondLast = arr.at(-2);
console.log(secondLast); // 👉️ c

We passed a value of -1 to the Array.at() method to get the last element of the array.

The Array.at() method returns the element at the specified index or undefined if the index is out of range.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• Get every Nth Element of Array using JavaScript
• Get the first N elements of an Array in JavaScript
• Get the last N elements of an Array in JavaScript
• Get one or Multiple Random Elements from an Array in JS
• Get the Second to Last Element in Array in JavaScript