Question

I have a string "01-02" and I would like to compare it to another string "02-03-1234". Is there a simple way that I can compare if the first five characters of one string are equal to the first five of another string?

Answer 1

Just use the Substring method to get part of the strings, and verify the length of the strings first unless you are completely sure that they are always at least five characters:

if (str1.Length >= 5 && str2.Length >= 5 && str1.Substring(0, 5) == str2.Substring(0, 5)) ........