check whether a character string begins with a string

Escapes any special RegExp characters in the search term. A way to check whether the search term (e.g. a variable name) is the beginning. Just a simple shorthand so that inexperienced R users won't have to use somewhat complex functions such as grepl() and stringr::str_detect(). You can also use \%starts_with\%.

Usage

haystack %begins_with% needle

Arguments

haystack

string in which you search

needle

string to search for

Examples

"1, 3, 4" %begins_with% "1" # TRUE
#> [1] TRUE
"1, 3, 4" %begins_with% 1 # unlike str_detect casts all needles as characters
#> [1] TRUE
"1, 3, 4" %begins_with% "." # FALSE
#> [1] FALSE