Is there a difference between a (general) pattern and a string pattern?

Question

I have a list myList that contains several strings. I wish to use Position to find the positions of strings in myList that match the pattern "A" ~~ ___.

The first overload for Position in the documentation is:

Position[expr, pattern] gives a list of the positions at which objects matching pattern appear in expr.

Is there a difference between a (general) pattern and a string pattern? In the following code, why does the first call to Position yield an empty list ({}), while the second call to Position gives the positions of the strings in myList that match "A" ~~ ___?

myList = {"AB", "B", "AABB", "BAA", "ABB"};
Position[myList, "A" ~~ ___, {1}, Heads -> False]
Position[myList, _?(StringMatchQ[#, "A" ~~ ___] &), {1}, Heads -> False]

{}

{{1}, {3}, {5}}

Is "A" ~~ ___ not a pattern?

Answer 1

Yes, there is a difference. "A" ~~ ___ is not a pattern but a StringExpression, which you can see by observing its FullForm:

"A" ~~ ___ // FullForm
StringExpression["A", BlankNullSequence[]]

StringExpression is used as an analog of Pattern for strings (more about Working with String Patterns).

Therefore, there are two different functions: MatchQ (with corresponding Position) and StringMatchQ (with corresponding StringPosition). While MatchQ expects a pattern, StringMatchQ expects a StringExpression (or RegularExpression), which is mentioned under the first bullet point in Details and Options.

Answer 2

As Domen already pointed out, Pattern and StringExpression differ. Therefore, what you can do, is to use a pattern together with a PatternTest that request a boolean function. As boolean function you choose:

StringMatchQ[#, "A" ~~ ___] &

With this the pattern looks like:

_?(StringMatchQ[#, "A" ~~ ___] &)

Now you approach works:

myList = {"AB", "B", "AABB", "BAA", "ABB"};
Position[myList, _?(StringMatchQ[#, "A" ~~ ___] &), {1},Heads -> False]

{{1}, {3}, {5}}