Shift Statement

The syntax of the shift statement is:

shift lvalueopt ;

The shift statement deletes the first value from the list referred to by lvalue; whence the list cannot be a null list. If lvalue is omitted, the argument list $ is assumed; hence it can only be used within a function body. The equivalent delete statements of the shift statements are:

delete $ , 1 ;     /* shift ; */
delete lvalue , 1 ;        /* shift lvalue ; */