Here are Java like startsWith/endsWith implementations in PHP.

<?php
    function startsWith($haystack,$needle)
    {
      $res=FALSE;
      if(mb_strripos($haystack,$needle,0,"utf-8")==0)
         $res= TRUE;
      return $res;
    }

    function endsWith($haystack,$needle)
    {
      $res=FALSE;
      $len=mb_strlen($haystack);
      $pos=$len-mb_strlen($needle);
      if(mb_strripos($haystack,$needle,0,"utf-8")==$pos)
         $res= TRUE;
      return $res;
    }
?>