How to check if a string starts with another string in C?

Question

Is there something like startsWith(str_a, str_b) in the standard C library?

It should take pointers to two strings that end with nullbytes, and tell me whether the first one also appears completely at the beginning of the second one.

Examples:

"abc", "abcdef" -> true "abcdef", "abc" -> false "abd", "abdcef" -> true "abc", "abc"    -> true 

Answer 1

There's no standard function for this, but you can define

bool prefix(const char *pre, const char *str) {     return strncmp(pre, str, strlen(pre)) == 0; } 

We don't have to worry about str being shorter than pre because according to the C standard (7.21.4.4/2):

The strncmp function compares not more than n characters (characters that follow a null character are not compared) from the array pointed to by s1 to the array pointed to by s2."

Answer 2

Apparently there's no standard C function for this. So:

bool startsWith(const char *pre, const char *str) {     size_t lenpre = strlen(pre),            lenstr = strlen(str);     return lenstr < lenpre ? false : memcmp(pre, str, lenpre) == 0; } 

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Note that the above is nice and clear, but if you're doing it in a tight loop or working with very large strings, it does not offer the best performance, as it scans the full length of both strings up front (strlen). Solutions like wj32's or Christoph's may offer better performance (although this comment about vectorization is beyond my ken of C). Also note Fred Foo's solution which avoids strlen on str (he's right, it's unnecessary if you use strncmp instead of memcmp). Only matters for (very) large strings or repeated use in tight loops, but when it matters, it matters.