like operator?

Try this

<script>
var str1, str2, str3;

str1 = "Hello World";
str2 = "Hello";
str3 = "Not in";

alert(str1.indexOf(str2));
alert(str1.indexOf(str3));
</script>

indexOf will give you -1 like in the situation above where str3 is not in str1
indexOf will give you >= 0 (position start from 0) where str2 is first found in str1.

coolio!

thats works a treat! what if i want the end to match?

Don't understand

well instead of it getting the indexof a string it looks for the end of the string to match.

u c

indexOf will find it anywhere.

Looking for hello in all of these:

<script>
var str1, str2, str3;

str1 = "Hello";
str2 = "Hello World";
str3 = "Not in here, it isn't";
str4 = "Well, you didn't even say Hello when I saw you yesterday";

alert(str2.indexOf(str1));
alert(str3.indexOf(str1));
alert(str4.indexOf(str1));
</script>

These will return 0, -1, 26 .  Any value>=0 indicates a match.

You should probably turn all strings to lowercase before comparing, because you wouldn't find a match for "Hello" in "You say goodbye and I say hello." because of the difference in capitalization.

Peace and joy to you.
mvan