Get first portion of string

[ArtWerk]

How do I extract only a portion of a string between two characters?

I.e.

$string = "(blah blah blah) ( blah blah ) (blah)";

$result == "blah blah blah";

Which is the first portion between the first parenthesis.

 

[sleipnir214]

One way is to use regular expressions:

<?php
$string = "(blah blah blah) ( bleh bleh ) (blih)";

preg_match ('@\([^\)]*\)@', $string, $result);

print trim($result[0], '()');
?>

Another is to not use regular expressions:

<?php
$string = "(blah blah blah) ( bleh bleh ) (blih)";

$first_paren = strpos ($string, '(');
$second_paren = strpos ($string, ')', $first_paren + 1);

if ($first_paren !== FALSE && $second_paren !== FALSE)
{
	$length = ($second_paren - $first_paren) - 1;
}

$result = substr ($string, $first_paren + 1, $length);

print $result;
?>

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[ArtWerk]

awesome, i actually worked it out a bit and used the 2nd version. Thanks!

 

[sleipnir214]

The second version is probably preferable. The PHP manual states its better to not use regular expressions unless you have to because regexes require a lot of server resource overhead.



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