Shifts the first value of the array off and returns it, shortening the array by 1 and moving everything down. If there are no elements in the array, returns the undefined value. If ARRAY is omitted, shifts the@_ array within the lexical scope of subroutines and formats, and the@ARGV array outside a subroutine and also within the lexical scopes established by theeval STRING,BEGIN {},INIT {},CHECK {},UNITCHECK {}, andEND {} constructs.
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowedshift to take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
See alsounshift,push, andpop.shift andunshift do the same thing to the left end of an array thatpop andpush do to the right end.
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