KSH check if string starts with substring

Question

I need to check if the variable has value of string which starts with specified substring.

In Python it would be something like this:

foo = \'abcdef\         


        

Answer 1

You can also do regex matching:

if [[ $foo =~ ^abc ]]

For more complex patterns, I recommend using a variable instead of putting the pattern directly in the test:

bar='^begin (abc|def|ghi)[^ ]* end$'
if [[ $foo =~ $bar ]]

Answer 2

Also:

foo='abcdef'
pattern='abc*'

case "$foo" in
    $pattern) echo startswith ;;
    *) echo otherwise ;;
esac

Answer 3

It's very simple but looks a bit odd:

if [[ "$foo" == abc* ]]; then ...

One would assume that ksh would expand the pattern with the files in the current directory but instead, it does pattern matching. You need the [[, though. Single [ won't work. The quotes are not strictly necessary if there are no blanks in foo.