C# Remove First Character from String

How to remove the first character from a string in C#

In this tutorial, you will learn how to remove the first character from a string in C#.

We will show you how to remove the first character in a string using three different ways.

Removing the first character using the Replace method

To remove the first character using the Replace method; first, get the first character from the string and replace it with an empty string.

Here is an example:

using System;
namespace CSharp_Remove_First_Character_From_String_Example
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string textString = "#abcdefghijklmnpq";
            //Get the first character
            char firstCharacter = textString[0];
            //Convert to a string
            string firstCharacterString = firstCharacter.ToString();
            //Replace the first character with an empty string
            //string emptyString = "";
            string emptyString = string.Empty;
            string newTextString = textString.Replace(firstCharacterString, emptyString);
            //Write to the console
            Console.WriteLine(newTextString);
        }
    }
}

Output:

abcdefghijklmnpq

Learn more: String Length in C#

Removing the first character using the Remove method

You also can use the Remove method to remove the first character, as the following sample code shows:

using System;
namespace CSharp_Remove_First_Character_From_String_Example
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string textString = "#abcdefghijklmnpq";
            var newTextString = textString.Remove(0, 1);
            Console.WriteLine(newTextString);
        }
    }
}

Output:

abcdefghijklmnpq

Removing the first character using the Substring method

It is also possible to remove the first character from a string using the C# Substring method.

Sample code:

using System;
namespace CSharp_Remove_First_Character_From_String_Example
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string textString = "#abcdefghijklmnpq";
            var newTextString = textString.Substring(1);
            Console.WriteLine(newTextString);
        }
    }
}

Output:

abcdefghijklmnpq

Using TrimStart() to remove the first character

Sample code:

using System;
namespace CSharp_Remove_First_Character_From_String_Example
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string textString = "#abcdefghijklmnpq";
            var newTextString = textString.TrimStart(textString[0]);
            Console.WriteLine(newTextString);
        }
    }
}

Summary

This tutorial showed three ways to remove the first character from a string.