Get the first Character of a String in JavaScript

Get the first Character of a String #

To get the first character of a string, call the charAt() method on the string, passing it 0 as a parameter - str.charAt(0). The method returns a new string containing the character at the specified index.

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const str = 'abcd';

const first = str.charAt(0);
console.log(first); // 👉️ a

The String.charAt method returns a new string, that contains the character at the passed in index.

If you supply an index that doesn't exist in the string, the charAt method returns an empty string.

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const str = '';

const first = str.charAt(0);
console.log(first); // 👉️ ""

An alternative approach is to directly access the index.

Get the first Character of a String directly #

To get the first character of a string, access the string at index 0, using bracket notation. For example, str[0] returns the first character of the string.

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const str = 'abcd';

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

If we access the string at the specific index, we can avoid calling the charAt method.

However, if you try to access the string at an index that doesn't exist you get undefined back.

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const str = '';

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

This is the reason I prefer the charAt method over directly accessing the index of the string.

Further Reading #

• Sum all the Digits in a Number using JavaScript
• How to check if a Character is a Letter in JavaScript