.startsWith()

The .startsWith() method returns true if a string starts with a given character sequence. Otherwise, false is returned.

string.startsWith(stringOfCharacters);

The stringOfChcaracters can either be a string literal or a representation of a String value (variables, constants, etc). This method will only return case-sensitive matches (i.e. “Word” != “word”).

The following example demonstrates the .startsWith() method:

import java.io.*;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // With string literals
    System.out.println("Hello World".startsWith("ello"));

    // With string objects
    String insertBadCoffeePun = "Java";
    String noMoreJokes = "J";
    System.out.println("We have had enough of bad coffee puns: " + insertBadCoffeePun.startsWith(noMoreJokes));
  }
}

This will print the following output:

false
We have had enough of bad coffee puns: true