What is the best approach to delete a portion of a string in PHP while retaining the rest of the string?

To delete a portion of a string in PHP while retaining the rest of the string, you can use the `substr_replace` function. This function allows you to replace a portion of a string with another string while keeping the rest of the original string intact. You need to specify the starting position of the portion you want to delete and the length of the portion to be deleted.

$string = "Hello World!";
$deleted_portion = substr_replace($string, "", 6, 6);
echo $deleted_portion; // Output: Hello!