How to get the first character of a string in JavaScript

There are multiple ways to get the first character of a string in JavaScript. You can use the charAt(), substring(), slice(), at(), or bracket notation property access to get the first character in a string.

Get the first character of a string using charAt() method

To get the first character of a string, you can call the charAt() method on the string, passing it 0 as the index of the character. This method returns a new string containing the character at the specified index.

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str.charAt(0)
console.log(firstChar) // P

The charAt() method returns the character of a string at the specified index.

If you provide an index that does not exist in the string, the charAt() method returns an empty string:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str.charAt(9)
console.log(firstChar) // ""

String indexes are zero-based in JavaScript. The first character has an index of 0, and the last has an index of str.length - 1.

Get the first character of a string using bracket notation

You can also use the bracket notation ([]) to get the first character of a string:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str[0]
console.log(firstChar) // P

Unlike charAt(), the bracket notation returns undefined if the given index does not exist, as shown below:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str[9]
console.log(firstChar) // undefined

Get the first character of a string using substring() method

To get the first character of the string, call the substring() on the string, and pass 0 and 1 as start and end indexes:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str.substring(0, 1)
console.log(firstChar) // P

The substring() method extracts characters between the start and end indexes from a string and returns the substring. The substring between the indexes 0 and 1 is a substring containing only the first string character.

Get the first character of a string using slice() method

To get the first character of the string, call the slice() method on the string, passing 0 and 1 as start and end indexes:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str.slice(0, 1)
console.log(firstChar) // P

The slice() method extracts a part of a string between the start and end indexes, specified as first and second parameters. It returns the extracted part as a new string and does not change the original string.

Get the first character of a string using at() method

The at() method takes an integer as input and returns the character of a string at the specified index. To get the first character of the string, call the at() method on the string with a 0 index:

const str = 'Protips'

const firstChar = str.at(0)
console.log(firstChar) // P

The at() method returns undefined if the index does not exist:

console.log(str.at(9))  // undefined

The at() method is a new addition to JavaScript and only works in modern browsers.

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