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Check Whether a String Starts with a Regexp in JavaScript

Dec 24, 2021

To check the beginning of a string using a regular expression in JavaScript, use the test() function and a regular expression that starts with ^. The ^ character is a special character that represents the start of the string. The test() function will search the string and return true if the string contains a match.

/^A/.test('A beautiful day for a walk, no?'); // true
/^A/.test('What a beautiful day'); // false

You can also turn a string into a regular expression by using the new RegExp() constructor.

const string = '^Hello';
const regexp = new RegExp(string);

regexp.test('Hello World'); // true
regexp.test('Hi There'); // false

The i flag makes a regular expression case insensitive.

/^A/i.test('ABC'); // true
/^A/i.test('abc'); // true

/^A/i.test('bac'); // false

// Or using RegExp constructor
const regexp = new RegExp('^A', 'i');

regexp.test('ABC'); // true
regexp.test('abc'); // true

regexp.test('bac'); // false

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