What are some recommended methods for parsing YouTube video IDs from URLs in PHP forums?

When parsing YouTube video IDs from URLs in PHP forums, one recommended method is to use regular expressions to extract the video ID from the URL. This can be achieved by matching the video ID pattern within the URL string. Another approach is to utilize the built-in parse_url function to extract the query parameters from the URL and then parse the video ID from the "v" parameter.

// Method 1: Using regular expressions
$url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID";
preg_match('/[\\?\\&]v=([^\\?\\&]+)/', $url, $matches);
$video_id = $matches[1];

// Method 2: Using parse_url function
$url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID";
$query_params = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_QUERY);
parse_str($query_params, $params);
$video_id = $params['v'];

echo $video_id; // Output: VIDEO_ID