PHP - String str_starts_with() Function

The PHP String str_starts_with() function is used to check if a string starts with a given substring. It performs case-sensitive check and returns true if the string starts with specified substring, else returns false.

Note: It is a binary-safe function. This function is new in PHP 8.

Syntax

str_starts_with(str1, str2)

Parameters

Return Value

Returns true if the string starts with specified substring, else returns false.

Example:

In the example below, str_starts_with() function is used to check whether the given string starts with specified substring or not.

<?php
$str1 = "Hello";

//checking whether $str1 starts with empty string
if(str_starts_with($str1, "")) {
  echo "Every string starts with an empty string.\n";
}

//checking whether $str1 starts with "lo"
if(str_starts_with($str1, "He")) {
  echo "$str1 starts with 'He'.\n";
}

//case-sensitive check -checking 
//whether $str1 starts "HE"
if(!str_starts_with($str1, "HE")) {
  echo "str_starts_with() performs case-sensitive check.\n";
}
?>

The output of the above code will be:

Every string starts with an empty string.
Hello starts with 'He'.
str_starts_with() performs case-sensitive check.