[Feature request] String starts-with and ends-with

[Rangi42]

Checking whether a string has a certain prefix or suffix is a common operation, which is why even high-level programming languages have added methods for it when they already had general-purpose substring-finding. (For example, C++ added .starts_with and .ends_with to std::string in C++20, and Javascript added .startsWith and .endsWith in ECMAScript 2015.)

I commented in #1884 that ^== and $== operators would make sense, in a parallel to regex ^ and $, or CSS ^= and $=. But even if it's not a common enough need to warrant operators, functions like STRSTARTS and STRENDS would also be useful.

Compare:

Current	Functions	Operators
STRFIND("\1", "prefix") == 0	STRSTARTS("\1", "prefix")	"\1" ^== "prefix"
STRRFIND("\1", "suffix") == STRLEN("\1") - STRLEN("suffix")	STRENDS("\1", "suffix")	"\1" $== "suffix"

[nitro2k01]

I would disagree with adding special syntax operators for this. Adding functions matching the start/end of a string is perfectly reasonable in itself. Them being functions with names like STRSTARTS/STRENDS is perfectly in line with existing string functionality, and would be more readable for someone who doesn't come from a "modern" dev background.

[Rangi42]

Same here! I listed the possible operators for completeness, but would prefer the functions.