根据詹姆斯·布莱克的回答，以下是其结尾版本：

function startsWith($haystack, $needle, $case=true) {
    if ($case)
        return strncmp($haystack, $needle, strlen($needle)) == 0;
    else
        return strncasecmp($haystack, $needle, strlen($needle)) == 0;
}

function endsWith($haystack, $needle, $case=true) {
     return startsWith(strrev($haystack),strrev($needle),$case);

}

注意：我已将if else部分替换为James Black的startsWith函数，因为strncasecmp实际上是strncmp的不区分大小写版本。

substr函数在许多特殊情况下都会返回false，所以这里是我的版本，它处理了这些问题：

function startsWith( $haystack, $needle ){
  return $needle === ''.substr( $haystack, 0, strlen( $needle )); // substr's false => empty string
}

function endsWith( $haystack, $needle ){
  $len = strlen( $needle );
  return $needle === ''.substr( $haystack, -$len, $len ); // ! len=0
}

测试（真表示良好）：

var_dump( startsWith('',''));
var_dump( startsWith('1',''));
var_dump(!startsWith('','1'));
var_dump( startsWith('1','1'));
var_dump( startsWith('1234','12'));
var_dump(!startsWith('1234','34'));
var_dump(!startsWith('12','1234'));
var_dump(!startsWith('34','1234'));
var_dump('---');
var_dump( endsWith('',''));
var_dump( endsWith('1',''));
var_dump(!endsWith('','1'));
var_dump( endsWith('1','1'));
var_dump(!endsWith('1234','12'));
var_dump( endsWith('1234','34'));
var_dump(!endsWith('12','1234'));
var_dump(!endsWith('34','1234'));

此外，substra_compare函数也值得一看。http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.substr-compare.php

如果速度对你很重要，试试这个。（我认为这是最快的方法）

仅适用于字符串，如果$haystack只有1个字符

function startsWithChar($needle, $haystack)
{
   return ($needle === $haystack[0]);
}

function endsWithChar($needle, $haystack)
{
   return ($needle === $haystack[strlen($haystack) - 1]);
}

$str='|apples}';
echo startsWithChar('|',$str); //Returns true
echo endsWithChar('}',$str); //Returns true
echo startsWithChar('=',$str); //Returns false
echo endsWithChar('#',$str); //Returns false

function startsWith($haystack, $needle, $case = true) {
    if ($case) {
        return (strcmp(substr($haystack, 0, strlen($needle)), $needle) === 0);
    }
    return (strcasecmp(substr($haystack, 0, strlen($needle)), $needle) === 0);
}

function endsWith($haystack, $needle, $case = true) {
    if ($case) {
        return (strcmp(substr($haystack, strlen($haystack) - strlen($needle)), $needle) === 0);
    }
    return (strcasecmp(substr($haystack, strlen($haystack) - strlen($needle)), $needle) === 0);
}

贷方：

检查字符串是否以另一个字符串结尾

检查字符串是否以另一个字符串开头

我希望以下答案既有效又简单：

$content = "The main string to search";
$search = "T";
//For compare the begining string with case insensitive. 
if(stripos($content, $search) === 0) echo 'Yes';
else echo 'No';

//For compare the begining string with case sensitive. 
if(strpos($content, $search) === 0) echo 'Yes';
else echo 'No';

//For compare the ending string with case insensitive. 
if(stripos(strrev($content), strrev($search)) === 0) echo 'Yes';
else echo 'No';

//For compare the ending string with case sensitive. 
if(strpos(strrev($content), strrev($search)) === 0) echo 'Yes';
else echo 'No';

无副本，无实习循环：

function startsWith(string $string, string $start): bool
{
    return strrpos($string, $start, - strlen($string)) !== false;
}

function endsWith(string $string, string $end): bool
{
    return ($offset = strlen($string) - strlen($end)) >= 0 
    && strpos($string, $end, $offset) !== false;
}