Simple string match

Question

I want to do a simple string match, searching from the -front- of the string. Are there easier ways to do this with maybe a builtin? (re seems like overkill)

def matchStr(ipadr = '10.20.30.40', matchIP = '10.20.'):
    if ipadr[0:len(matchIP)] == matchIP: return True
    return False

Answer 1

def matchStr(ipadr = '10.20.30.40', matchIP = '10.20.'):
    return ipadr.startswith(matchIP)

Answer 2

>>> 'abcde'.startswith('abc')
True