Question

Is there a “start by” filter in jQuery, something like :contain but with a string beginning condition ?

Answer 1

Not that I know of, but you can easily implement your own selector for jQuery:

$.extend($.expr[':'], {
    startsWith: function(elem,match) {  
        return (elem.textContent || elem.innerText || "").indexOf(match[3]) == 0;
    }  
});

Now you can use it like this:

$("p:startsWith(Hello)").css("color","red")