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;
}

---

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.

Answer 3

I'd probably go with strncmp(), but just for fun a raw implementation:

_Bool starts_with(const char *restrict string, const char *restrict prefix)
{
    while(*prefix)
    {
        if(*prefix++ != *string++)
            return 0;
    }

    return 1;
}

Answer 4

Use strstr() function. Stra == strstr(stra, strb)

Reference

The strstr() function finds the first occurrence of string2 in string1. The function ignores the null character (\0) that ends string2 in the matching process.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.4?topic=functions-strstr-locate-substring

Answer 5

I'm no expert at writing elegant code, but...

int prefix(const char *pre, const char *str)
{
    char cp;
    char cs;

    if (!*pre)
        return 1;

    while ((cp = *pre++) && (cs = *str++))
    {
        if (cp != cs)
            return 0;
    }

    if (!cs)
        return 0;

    return 1;
}

Answer 6

I noticed the following function definition in the Linux Kernel. It returns true if str starts with prefix, otherwise it returns false.

/**
* strstarts - does @str start with @prefix?
* @str: string to examine
* @prefix: prefix to look for.
*/
bool strstarts(const char *str, const char *prefix)
{
     return strncmp(str, prefix, strlen(prefix)) == 0;
}

Answer 7

Optimized (v.2. - corrected):

uint32 startsWith( const void* prefix_, const void* str_ ) {
    uint8 _cp, _cs;
    const uint8* _pr = (uint8*) prefix_;
    const uint8* _str = (uint8*) str_;
    while ( ( _cs = *_str++ ) & ( _cp = *_pr++ ) ) {
        if ( _cp != _cs ) return 0;
    }
    return !_cp;
}

Answer 8

Because I ran the accepted version and had a problem with a very long str, I had to add in the following logic:

bool longEnough(const char *str, int min_length) {
    int length = 0;
    while (str[length] && length < min_length)
        length++;
    if (length == min_length)
        return true;
    return false;
}

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

Answer 9

Or a combination of the two approaches:

_Bool starts_with(const char *restrict string, const char *restrict prefix)
{
    char * const restrict prefix_end = prefix + 13;
    while (1)
    {
        if ( 0 == *prefix  )
            return 1;   
        if ( *prefix++ != *string++)
            return 0;
        if ( prefix_end <= prefix  )
            return 0 == strncmp(prefix, string, strlen(prefix));
    }  
}

EDIT: The code below does NOT work because if strncmp returns 0 it is not known if a terminating 0 or the length (block_size) was reached.

An additional idea is to compare block-wise. If the block is not equal compare that block with the original function:

_Bool starts_with_big(const char *restrict string, const char *restrict prefix)
{
    size_t block_size = 64;
    while (1)
    {
        if ( 0 != strncmp( string, prefix, block_size ) )
          return starts_with( string, prefix);
        string += block_size;
        prefix += block_size;
        if ( block_size < 4096 )
          block_size *= 2;
    }
}

The constants 13, 64, 4096, as well as the exponentiation of the block_size are just guesses. It would have to be selected for the used input data and hardware.

Answer 10

I use this macro:

#define STARTS_WITH(string_to_check, prefix) (strncmp(string_to_check, prefix, ((sizeof(prefix) / sizeof(prefix[0])) - 1)) ? 0:((sizeof(prefix) / sizeof(prefix[0])) - 1))

It returns the prexif length if the string starts with the prefix. This length is evaluated compile time (sizeof) so there is no runtime overhead.