---
title: first() function
description: >
  `first()` returns the first non-null record from each input table.
menu:
  flux_v0_ref:
    name: first
    parent: universe
    identifier: universe/first
weight: 101
flux/v0/tags: [transformations, selectors]
introduced: 0.7.0
---

<!------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT: This page was generated from comments in the Flux source code. Any
edits made directly to this page will be overwritten the next time the
documentation is generated. 

To make updates to this documentation, update the function comments above the
function definition in the Flux source code:

https://github.com/influxdata/flux/blob/master/stdlib/universe/universe.flux#L699-L699

Contributing to Flux: https://github.com/influxdata/flux#contributing
Fluxdoc syntax: https://github.com/influxdata/flux/blob/master/docs/fluxdoc.md

------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

`first()` returns the first non-null record from each input table.

**Note**: `first()` drops empty tables.

##### Function type signature

```js
(<-tables: stream[A], ?column: string) => stream[A] where A: Record
```

{{% caption %}}
For more information, see [Function type signatures](/flux/v0/function-type-signatures/).
{{% /caption %}}

## Parameters

### column

Column to operate on. Default is `_value`.



### tables

Input data. Default is piped-forward data (`<-`).




## Examples

### Return the first row in each input table

```js
import "sampledata"

sampledata.int()
    |> first()

```

{{< expand-wrapper >}}
{{% expand "View example input and output" %}}

#### Input data

| _time                | _value  | *tag |
| -------------------- | ------- | ---- |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z | -2      | t1   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:10Z | 10      | t1   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:20Z | 7       | t1   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:30Z | 17      | t1   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:40Z | 15      | t1   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:50Z | 4       | t1   |

| _time                | _value  | *tag |
| -------------------- | ------- | ---- |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z | 19      | t2   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:10Z | 4       | t2   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:20Z | -3      | t2   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:30Z | 19      | t2   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:40Z | 13      | t2   |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:50Z | 1       | t2   |


#### Output data

| _time                | _value  | *tag |
| -------------------- | ------- | ---- |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z | -2      | t1   |

| _time                | _value  | *tag |
| -------------------- | ------- | ---- |
| 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z | 19      | t2   |

{{% /expand %}}
{{< /expand-wrapper >}}