Methods for determining whether a given character container has a given prefix

or suffix.  This is in particular applicable to strings.

[[Imported from SVN: r6038]]

dune/common/misc.hh

@@ -7,8 +7,12 @@
     \brief Miscellaneous helper stuff
  */
 
+#include <algorithm>
+#include <cstddef>
+#include <cstring>
 #include <iostream>
 #include <iomanip>
+#include <iterator>
 #include <sstream>
 #include <complex>
 #include "exceptions.hh"
@@ -123,6 +127,41 @@ namespace Dune {
     return name.str();
   }
 
+
+  //********************************************************************
+  //
+  //  check whether a given container has a prefix/suffix
+  //
+  //********************************************************************
+
+  //! check whether a character container has a given prefix
+  /**
+   * The container must support the the begin() and size() methods.
+   */
+  template<typename C>
+  bool hasPrefix(const C& c, const char* prefix) {
+    std::size_t len = std::strlen(prefix);
+    return c.size() >= len &&
+           std::equal(prefix, prefix+len, c.begin());
+  }
+
+  //! check whether a character container has a given suffix
+  /**
+   * The container must support the the begin() and size() methods and the
+   * const_iterator member type.
+   *
+   * \note This is slow for containers which don't have random access iterators.
+   *       In the case of containers with bidirectional iterators, this
+   *       slow-ness is unecessary.
+   */
+  template<typename C>
+  bool hasSuffix(const C& c, const char* suffix) {
+    std::size_t len = std::strlen(suffix);
+    if(c.size() < len) return false;
+    typename C::const_iterator it = c.begin();
+    std::advance(it, c.size() - len);
+    return std::equal(suffix, suffix+len, it);
+  }
   /** @} */
 
 }