bash script to check the first character in string

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello
would appreciate if somebody can post a bash script that checks if the first character of the given string is equal to, say, "a"

thnx in advance

2 
$ echo "unix" | awk 'BEGIN {FS=OFS=""} END { if (!found) print "FAILED" }
$1 == "u" { print "PASSED"; found++ }
'
PASSED

$ echo "unix" | awk 'BEGIN {FS=OFS=""} END { if (!found) print "FAILED" }
$1 == "g" { print "PASSED"; found++ }
'
FAILED

//Jadu

3

This will work in bash/korn/baurne

str="$*"

case $str in
a*) echo "a found" ;;
*) echo " no a" ;;
esac