How to check if a string “StartsWith” another string?

Question

How would I write the equivalent of C#\'s String.StartsWith in JavaScript?

var haystack = \'hello world\';
var needle = \'he\';

haystack.startsWith(needle)          


        

Answer 1

Best solution:

function startsWith(str, word) {
    return str.lastIndexOf(word, 0) === 0;
}

And here is endsWith if you need that too:

function endsWith(str, word) {
    return str.indexOf(word, str.length - word.length) !== -1;
}

For those that prefer to prototype it into String:

String.prototype.startsWith || (String.prototype.startsWith = function(word) {
    return this.lastIndexOf(word, 0) === 0;
});

String.prototype.endsWith   || (String.prototype.endsWith = function(word) {
    return this.indexOf(word, this.length - word.length) !== -1;
});

Usage:

"abc".startsWith("ab")
true
"c".ensdWith("c") 
true

With method:

startsWith("aaa", "a")
true
startsWith("aaa", "ab")
false
startsWith("abc", "abc")
true
startsWith("abc", "c")
false
startsWith("abc", "a")
true
startsWith("abc", "ba")
false
startsWith("abc", "ab")
true