startsWith() and endsWith() functions in PHP

How can I write two functions that would take a string and return if it starts with the specified character/string or ends with it?

For example:

$str = '|apples}';

echo startsWith($str, '|'); //Returns true
echo endsWith($str, '}'); //Returns true

Solution 1:

PHP 8.0 and higher

Since PHP 8.0 you can use the

str_starts_with Manual and

str_ends_with Manual

Example

echo str_starts_with($str, '|');

PHP before 8.0

function startsWith( $haystack, $needle ) {
     $length = strlen( $needle );
     return substr( $haystack, 0, $length ) === $needle;
}

function endsWith( $haystack, $needle ) {
    $length = strlen( $needle );
    if( !$length ) {
        return true;
    }
    return substr( $haystack, -$length ) === $needle;
}

Solution 2:

You can use substr_compare function to check start-with and ends-with:

function startsWith($haystack, $needle) {
    return substr_compare($haystack, $needle, 0, strlen($needle)) === 0;
}
function endsWith($haystack, $needle) {
    return substr_compare($haystack, $needle, -strlen($needle)) === 0;
}

^{This should be one of the fastest solutions on PHP 7 (benchmark script). Tested against 8KB haystacks, various length needles and full, partial and no match cases. strncmp is a touch faster for starts-with but it cannot check ends-with.}

Solution 3:

Updated 23-Aug-2016

Functions

function substr_startswith($haystack, $needle) {
    return substr($haystack, 0, strlen($needle)) === $needle;
}

function preg_match_startswith($haystack, $needle) {
    return preg_match('~' . preg_quote($needle, '~') . '~A', $haystack) > 0;
}

function substr_compare_startswith($haystack, $needle) {
    return substr_compare($haystack, $needle, 0, strlen($needle)) === 0;
}

function strpos_startswith($haystack, $needle) {
    return strpos($haystack, $needle) === 0;
}

function strncmp_startswith($haystack, $needle) {
    return strncmp($haystack, $needle, strlen($needle)) === 0;
}

function strncmp_startswith2($haystack, $needle) {
    return $haystack[0] === $needle[0]
        ? strncmp($haystack, $needle, strlen($needle)) === 0
        : false;
}

Tests

echo 'generating tests';
for($i = 0; $i < 100000; ++$i) {
    if($i % 2500 === 0) echo '.';
    $test_cases[] = [
        random_bytes(random_int(1, 7000)),
        random_bytes(random_int(1, 3000)),
    ];
}
echo "done!\n";


$functions = ['substr_startswith', 'preg_match_startswith', 'substr_compare_startswith', 'strpos_startswith', 'strncmp_startswith', 'strncmp_startswith2'];
$results = [];

foreach($functions as $func) {
    $start = microtime(true);
    foreach($test_cases as $tc) {
        $func(...$tc);
    }
    $results[$func] = (microtime(true) - $start) * 1000;
}

asort($results);

foreach($results as $func => $time) {
    echo "$func: " . number_format($time, 1) . " ms\n";
}

Results (PHP 7.0.9)

(Sorted fastest to slowest)

strncmp_startswith2: 40.2 ms
strncmp_startswith: 42.9 ms
substr_compare_startswith: 44.5 ms
substr_startswith: 48.4 ms
strpos_startswith: 138.7 ms
preg_match_startswith: 13,152.4 ms

Results (PHP 5.3.29)

(Sorted fastest to slowest)

strncmp_startswith2: 477.9 ms
strpos_startswith: 522.1 ms
strncmp_startswith: 617.1 ms
substr_compare_startswith: 706.7 ms
substr_startswith: 756.8 ms
preg_match_startswith: 10,200.0 ms

startswith_benchmark.php

Solution 4:

All answers so far seem to do loads of unnecessary work, strlen calculations, string allocations (substr), etc. The 'strpos' and 'stripos' functions return the index of the first occurrence of $needle in $haystack:

function startsWith($haystack,$needle,$case=true)
{
    if ($case)
        return strpos($haystack, $needle, 0) === 0;

    return stripos($haystack, $needle, 0) === 0;
}

function endsWith($haystack,$needle,$case=true)
{
    $expectedPosition = strlen($haystack) - strlen($needle);

    if ($case)
        return strrpos($haystack, $needle, 0) === $expectedPosition;

    return strripos($haystack, $needle, 0) === $expectedPosition;
}

Solution 5:

PHP 8 update

PHP 8 includes new str_starts_with and str_ends_with functions that finally provide a performant and convenient solution to this problem:

$str = "beginningMiddleEnd";
if (str_starts_with($str, "beg")) echo "printed\n";
if (str_starts_with($str, "Beg")) echo "not printed\n";
if (str_ends_with($str, "End")) echo "printed\n";
if (str_ends_with($str, "end")) echo "not printed\n";

The RFC for this feature provides more information, and also a discussion of the merits and problems of obvious (and not-so-obvious) userland implementations.