How to remove the first element from an array in Bash

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to remove the first element from an array in the Bash shell.

Consider, we have the following array:

arr=(a b c d)

To remove the first element (a) from an above array, we can use the built-in unset command followed by the arr[0] in bash.

Here is an example:

arr=(a b c d)

unset arr[0] # removes the first element

echo ${arr[@]} # prints the array

Output:

b c d

Similarly, you can also use the following syntax.

array=(a b c d)

array=("${array[@]:1}") # removes the first element

echo ${array[@]}

you can also read, how to get the first element of an array in Bash