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String API: string.startsWith()

Determines whether a string begins with the characters of another string.

str.startsWith(searchString) determines whether str begins with `searchString'.

the 1st parameter, the string to search for

can be just a character
const s = 'the string s'; const actual = s.starts_with('t'); assert.equal(actual, true);
can be a string
const s = 'the string s'; const actual = '???'; assert.equal(actual, s.startsWith('the'));
can contain unicode characters
const nuclear = 'NO ☢ NO'; assert.equal(nuclear.startsWith('☢'), true);
a regular expression throws a TypeError
const aRegExp = 'the'; assert.throws(() => {''.startsWith(aRegExp)}, TypeError);

the 2nd parameter, the position where to start searching from

e.g. find "str" at position 4
const s = 'the string s'; const position = 3; assert.equal(s.startsWith('str', position), true);
for undefined is the same as 0
const s = 'the string s'; const myUndefined = '1'; assert.equal(s.startsWith('the', myUndefined), true);
the parameter gets converted to an int
const s = 'the string s'; const position = 'four'; assert.equal(s.startsWith('str', position), true);
a value larger than the string's length, returns false
const s = 'the string s'; const actual = true; assert.equal(actual, s.startsWith(' ', s.length + 1));

this functionality can be used on non-strings too

e.g. a boolean
let aBool; assert.equal(String.prototype.startsWith.call(aBool, 'false'), true);
e.g. a number
let aNumber = 19; assert.equal(String.prototype.startsWith.call(aNumber + 84, '1984'), true);
also using the position works
const position = 0; assert.equal(String.prototype.startsWith.call(1994, '99', position), true);

Links

The official specification, actually quite good to read for this function.
The Mozilla Developer Network docs, contains good examples.