StrictMetricsEvaluator does not use column bounds to evaluate notStartsWith

[bharos]

Feature Request / Improvement

StrictMetricsEvaluator.notStartsWith currently always returns ROWS_MIGHT_NOT_MATCH, ignoring file-level column bounds entirely. There is an existing TODO in the code:

// TODO: Handle cases that definitely cannot match, such as notStartsWith("x") when the bounds
// are ["a", "b"].

When the column's lower and upper bounds prove that no value in the file can start with the given prefix, the evaluator should return ROWS_MUST_MATCH. This allows the engine to skip unnecessary row-level filtering for NOT STARTS WITH predicates, improving query performance on string-heavy workloads.

Specifically, the evaluator can determine that all rows match NOT STARTS WITH when:

• The column contains only null values
• The lower bound (truncated to the shorter of prefix/bound length) is strictly greater than the prefix — all values are above the prefix range
• The upper bound (truncated to the shorter of prefix/bound length) is strictly less than the prefix — all values are below the prefix range

This mirrors how notEq and notIn already use bounds in the same evaluator.

Query engine

None

Willingness to contribute

• I can contribute this improvement/feature independently
• I would be willing to contribute this improvement/feature with guidance from the Iceberg community
• I cannot contribute this improvement/feature at this time