Test if string begins with a string

Question

In VBA  what s the most straight forward way to test if a string begins with a substring   Java has startsWith   Is there a VBA equivalent

User · Answer

Judging by the declaration and description of the startsWith Java function, the "most straight forward way" to implement it in VBA would either be with Left:

Public Function startsWith(str As String, prefix As String) As Boolean
    startsWith = Left(str, Len(prefix)) = prefix
End Function

Or, if you want to have the offset parameter available, with Mid:

Public Function startsWith(str As String, prefix As String, Optional toffset As Integer = 0) As Boolean
    startsWith = Mid(str, toffset + 1, Len(prefix)) = prefix
End Function

User · Answer

There are several ways to do this   InStr  You can use the InStr build-in function to test if a String contains a substring   InStr will either return the index of the first match  or 0   So you can test if a String begins with a substring by doing the following   If InStr 1   Hello World    Hello W     1 Then     MsgBox  Yep  this string begins with Hello W   End If   If InStr returns 1  then the String   Hello World    begins with the substring   Hello W     Like  You can also use the like comparison operator along with some basic pattern matching   If  Hello World  Like  Hello W   Then     MsgBox  Yep  this string begins with Hello W   End If   In this  we use an asterisk     to test if the String begins with our substring

User · Answer

The best methods are already given but why not look at a couple of other methods for fun  Warning  these are more expensive methods but do serve in other circumstances  The expensive regex method and the css attribute selector with starts with   operator Option Explicit  Public Sub test        Debug Print StartWithSubString  quot ab quot    quot abc d quot    End Sub   Regex  Public Function StartWithSubString ByVal substring As String  ByVal testString As String  As Boolean      required reference Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions     Dim re As VBScript RegExp 55 RegExp     Set re   New VBScript RegExp 55 RegExp      re Pattern    quot   quot   amp  substring      StartWithSubString   re test testString   End Function   Css attribute selector with starts with operator Public Function StartWithSubString ByVal substring As String  ByVal testString As String  As Boolean      required reference Microsoft HTML Object Library     Dim html As MSHTML HTMLDocument     Set html   New MSHTML HTMLDocument      html body innerHTML    quot  lt div test  quot  quot  quot   amp  testString  amp   quot  quot  quot  gt  lt  div gt  quot       StartWithSubString   html querySelectorAll  quot  test   quot   amp  substring  amp   quot   quot   Length  gt  0  End Function

[vba] Test if string begins with a string?

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