In digital electronics, to shift is to move all the bits of a register to the left (left shift) or right (right shift). The last bit in the shift direction is "shifted out", while a new bit is supplied for the first.
Example:
     ----------
1 -> |01100110| ->
     ----------

     ----------
  -> |10110011| -> 0
     ----------
See also shift register.
Perl function:
shift @array

Removes and returns the first value of @array, moving the other elements down and reducing the length of @array by 1. If @array contains no elements, the undefined value is returned.

If no argument is given, shift affects @ARGV (in main program) or @_ (in a subroutine).

See also push, pop and unshift.

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