How to check if a word starts with a given character?

To check one value, use:

    string word = "Aword";
    if (word.StartsWith("A")) 
    {
        // do something
    }

You can make a little extension method to pass a list with A, B, and C

    public static bool StartsWithAny(this string source, IEnumerable<string> strings)
    {
        foreach (var valueToCheck in strings)
        {
            if (source.StartsWith(valueToCheck))
            {
                return true;
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

    if (word.StartsWithAny(new List<string>() { "A", "B", "C" })) 
    {
        // do something
    }

AND as a bonus, if you want to know what your string starts with, from a list, and do something based on that value:

    public static bool StartsWithAny(this string source, IEnumerable<string> strings, out string startsWithValue)
    {
        startsWithValue = null;

        foreach (var valueToCheck in strings)
        {
            if (source.StartsWith(valueToCheck))
            {
                startsWithValue = valueToCheck;
                return true;
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

Usage:

    string word = "AWord";
    string startsWithValue;
    if (word.StartsWithAny(new List<string>() { "a", "b", "c" }, out startsWithValue))
    {
        switch (startsWithValue)
        {
            case "A":
                // Do Something
                break;

            // etc.
        }
    }

You could do something like this to check for a specific character.

public bool StartsWith(string value, string currentChar) {
   return value.StartsWith(currentChar, true, null);
}

The StartsWith method has an option to ignore the case. The third parameter is to set the culture. If null, it just uses the current culture. With this method, you can loop through your words, run the check and process the word to highlight that first character as needed.

Assuming the properties you're checking are string types, you can use the String.StartsWith() method.. for example: -

if(item.Title.StartsWith("A"))
{
    //do whatever
}

Rinse and repeat