How to check if a string starts with a substring using regex in Python?

Last Updated : 29 Dec, 2020

Prerequisite: Regular Expression in Python

Given a string str, the task is to check if a string starts with a given substring or not using regular expression.

Examples:

Input: String: "geeks for geeks makes learning fun" 
       Substring: "geeks" 
Output: True 
Input: String: "geeks for geeks makes learning fun" 
       Substring: "makes" 
Output: False

Approach 1:
Here, we first check a given substring present in a string or not if yes then we use search() function of re library along with metacharacter “^”. This metacharacter checks for a given string starts with substring provided or not.

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

Python3

# import library
import re
  
# define a function 
def find(string, sample) :
    
  # check substring present 
  # in a string or not
  if (sample in string):
  
      y = "^" + sample
  
      # check if string starts 
      # with the substring
      x = re.search(y, string)
  
      if x :
          print("string starts with the given substring")
  
      else :
          print("string doesn't start with the given substring")
  
  else :
      print("entered string isn't a substring")
  
  
# Driver code
string = "geeks for geeks makes learning fun"  
sample = "geeks"
  
# function call
find(string, sample)
  
sample = "makes"
  
# function call
find(string, sample)

Output:

string starts with the given substring
string doesn't start with the given substring

Approach 2:
Here, we first check a given substring present in a string or not if yes then we use search() function of re library along with metacharacter “\A”. This metacharacter checks for a given string starts with substring provided or not.

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

Python3

# import library
import re
  
# define a function 
def find(string, sample) :
    
  # check substring present 
  # in a string or not
  if (sample in string):
  
      y = "\A" + sample
  
      # check if string starts 
      # with the substring
      x = re.search(y, string)
  
      if x :
          print("string starts with the given substring")
  
      else :
          print("string doesn't start with the given substring")
  
  else :
      print("entered string isn't a substring")
  
  
# Driver code
string = "geeks for geeks makes learning fun"  
sample = "geeks"
  
# function call
find(string, sample)
  
sample = "makes"
  
# function call
find(string, sample)

Output:

string starts with the given substring
string doesn't start with the given substring

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