How can substr() function be used effectively in PHP for string manipulation?

The substr() function in PHP can be used effectively for string manipulation by extracting a portion of a string based on a specified start position and length. This function is useful for tasks such as truncating text, extracting substrings, or manipulating specific parts of a string.

// Example of using substr() function for string manipulation
$string = "Hello, World!";
$substring = substr($string, 0, 5); // Extracts the first 5 characters of the string
echo $substring; // Output: Hello