Checking whether a string starts with XXXX

Question

I would like to know how to check whether a string starts with "hello" in Python.

In Bash I usually do:

if [[ "$string" =~ ^hello ]]; then
 do something here
fi

How do I achieve the same in Python?

Answer 1

aString = "hello world"
aString.startswith("hello")

More info about startwith

Answer 2

RanRag has already answered it for your specific question.

However, more generally, what you are doing with

if [[ "$string" =~ ^hello ]]

is a regex match. To do the same in Python, you would do:

import re
if re.match(r'^hello', somestring):
    # do stuff

Obviously, in this case, somestring.startswith('hello') is better.

Answer 3

In case you want to match multiple words to your magic word you can pass the words to match as a tuple:

>>> magicWord = 'zzzTest'
>>> magicWord.startswith(('zzz', 'yyy', 'rrr'))
True

Note: startswith takes str or a tuple of str

See the docs.

Answer 4

Can also be done this way..

regex=re.compile('^hello')

## THIS WAY YOU CAN CHECK FOR MULTIPLE STRINGS
## LIKE
## regex=re.compile('^hello|^john|^world')

if re.match(regex, somestring):
    print("Yes")