PHP preg_replace string – contents within brackets

Question

I'm struggling to understand PHP preg_replace and wondered if you could offer any guidance on how to work out how to keep the word within the brackets but remove everything else from this string:

Events (Road)

So it would return:

Road

I'm keen to learn so don't just need the answer but need to understand how it's possible.

I know how to remove the words within the brackets (and the brackets) with:

trim(preg_replace('/\s*\([^)]*\)/', '', 'Events (Road)')

Cheers, R

@Rizier123 i think he want to remain word inside (). rest he want to remove. — Death-is-the-real-truth
– Death-is-the-real-truth, Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 14:43

AbraCadaver · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07 14:44:21Z

3

One way is to capture the characters within the parentheses and then replace everything else with that. $1 is a back-reference to the first capture group ():

preg_replace('/.*\(([^)]*)\)/', '$1', 'Events (Road)');

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

answered Jul 7, 2015 at 14:44

AbraCadaver

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