<p>What's the best/most efficient way to extract text set between parenthesis? Say I wanted to get the string "text" from the string "ignore everything except this (text)" in the most efficient manner possible.</p>

<p>So far, the best I've come up with is this:</p>

<pre><code>$fullString = "ignore everything except this (text)";
$start = strpos('(', $fullString);
$end = strlen($fullString) - strpos(')', $fullString);

$shortString = substr($fullString, $start, $end);
</code></pre>

<p>Is there a better way to do this? I know in general using regex tends to be less efficient, but unless I can reduce the number of function calls, perhaps this would be the best approach? Thoughts?</p>

i'd just do a regex and get it over with. unless you are doing enough iterations that it becomes a huge performance issue, it's just easier to code (and understand when you look back on it)
```
```
$text = 'ignore everything except this (text)';
preg_match('#\((.*?)\)#', $text, $match);
print $match[1];
```
```