Question

I have a text that could possibly include words, numbers etc. All I want is to match the numbers inside brackets, but withtout matching them like this:

Lorem 43 ipsum dolor 1 sit amet (355) some
other text.

I want to match the number 355, but since there are numbers without brackets, I get to this:

\(\b\d+\b\) - 1st variant
\(.+?\)     - 2nd variant

Presumably I get (355), but my php script is already under heavy load, matching to remove the brackets is not a an option.

Answer 1

Just match like your 1st variant, but capture only the digits in a group, like this

\((\d+)\)

And I think PHP supports named capture groups, so you could name it, so you aren’t looking it up by index, like this I think

preg_match('/\((?<MatchedNumber>\d+)\)/', $searchText, $groups);
print_r($groups['MatchedNumber']);