First value comma separated string

Question

There will be a string with a single or multiple with no commas at all.

$str = "a, b";

How do I get the first value before the comma if it contains comma(s)? This is what I did.

if(preg_match('/[,]+/', $str, $f)) {
     $firstVal = $f[0];
}

NOTE: Is /^[^,]+/ better suited?

Answer 1

Explode, validate and print.

$values = explode(',',$str);
if(key_exists(0,$values) &&  trim($values[0])!=""){
  echo $values[0];
}  

Answer 2

There are several ways to achieve this.

1. Using substr() and strpos()

   echo substr($str,0,strrpos($str,','));
   

2. Using explode()

   $result = explode(',',$str);
   echo $result[0];
   

3. Using strstr()

   echo strstr($str, ',', true);
   

Answer 3

You can use strtok:

$firstVal = strtok($str, ",")