prefix matches with C strings

one thing I realised while reading some code at work that worked with C strings: it’s surprising how easy it is to match a prefix on a C string.

if (s != NULL
    && s[0] == 'h'
    && s[1] == 'u'
    && s[2] == 'g')
{
    // ...
}

this works because of the NUL terminator—if it appears at any point in the string, the s[i] == c comparison will return false, thus breaking the && chain—so indices always stay in-bounds!