What is the significance of the Circumflex (^) symbol in regex patterns in PHP?

The circumflex (^) symbol in regex patterns in PHP is used to match the beginning of a string. This means that the pattern following the circumflex must appear at the beginning of the string for a match to occur. It is useful for ensuring that a certain pattern is at the start of a string.

$string = "hello world";
$pattern = "/^hello/";
if (preg_match($pattern, $string)) {
    echo "String starts with 'hello'";
} else {
    echo "String does not start with 'hello'";
}