shift

Removes the first element of self and returns it (shifting all other elements down by one). Returns nil if the array is empty.

If a number n is given, returns an array of the first n elements (or less) just like array.slice!(0, n) does. With ary containing only the remainder elements, not including what was shifted to new_ary. See also #unshift for the opposite effect.

args = [ "-m", "-q", "filename" ]
args.shift     #=> "-m"
args           #=> ["-q", "filename"]

args = [ "-m", "-q", "filename" ]
args.shift(2)  #=> ["-m", "-q"]
args           #=> ["filename"]