How can regular expressions be utilized in PHP to extract specific information from strings, as demonstrated in the code examples provided in the thread?

Regular expressions can be utilized in PHP to extract specific information from strings by using functions like preg_match() or preg_match_all(). These functions allow you to define a pattern to search for within a string and extract the desired information based on that pattern. By using regular expressions, you can easily extract data such as email addresses, phone numbers, or specific keywords from a string. Example code snippet:

$string = "Email me at john.doe@example.com or call me at 555-123-4567";
$pattern = '/[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}/'; // Regular expression pattern for email addresses

if (preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches)) {
    echo "Email found: " . $matches[0];
}

$pattern = '/\b\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}\b/'; // Regular expression pattern for phone numbers

if (preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches)) {
    echo "Phone number found: " . $matches[0];
}