php-regexHow to get the first match when using regex in PHP?

The preg_match() function in PHP can be used to get the first match when using regex.

$string = 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.';
$pattern = '/quick (\w+)/';
preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches);
echo $matches[0];

The output of the above code will be:

quick brown

Code explanation

$string: This is the string in which the regex pattern will be searched.
$pattern: This is the regex pattern which will be used to search the string.
preg_match(): This is the function which will be used to search the string for the regex pattern. It takes three parameters: the regex pattern, the string to search, and an array to store the matches.
$matches: This is the array which will store the matches.
echo $matches[0]: This will output the first match.