What is the significance of using regular expressions in PHP, as demonstrated in the provided code snippets?

Regular expressions in PHP are significant for pattern matching and manipulating strings based on specific criteria. In the provided code snippets, regular expressions are used to validate email addresses and extract specific information from strings. By using regular expressions, developers can efficiently handle complex string operations and ensure data consistency.

// Validate an email address using a regular expression
$email = "example@example.com";
if (preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}$/", $email)) {
    echo "Valid email address";
} else {
    echo "Invalid email address";
}

// Extract a phone number from a string using a regular expression
$string = "Contact us at 123-456-7890 for more information";
if (preg_match("/\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}/", $string, $matches)) {
    echo "Phone number found: " . $matches[0];
} else {
    echo "No phone number found";
}