Check if one string is a prefix of another

Question

I have two strings which I\'d like to compare: String and String:. Is there a library function that would return true when passed these two strings

Answer 1

How about simply:

bool prefix(const std::string& a, const std::string& b) {
  if (a.size() > b.size()) {
    return a.substr(0,b.size()) == b;
  }
  else {
    return b.substr(0,a.size()) == a;
  }
}

C++ not C, safe, simple, efficient.

Tested with:

#include 
#include 

bool prefix(const std::string& a, const std::string& b);

int main() {
  const std::string t1 = "test";
  const std::string t2 = "testing";
  const std::string t3 = "hello";
  const std::string t4 = "hello world";
  std::cout << prefix(t1,t2) << "," << prefix(t2,t1) << std::endl;
  std::cout << prefix(t3,t4) << "," << prefix(t4,t3) << std::endl;
  std::cout << prefix(t1,t4) << "," << prefix(t4,t1) << std::endl;
  std::cout << prefix(t1,t3) << "," << prefix(t3,t1) << std::endl;

}