Q:

How to get number from between brackets in string in PHP

Currently I use arrays such as this one for version control of a Mysql database:
$pages_table = array (
    "GUID" => array (
        "type" => "CHAR(13)",
        "length" => 13,
    )
    "Number" => array (
        "type" => "TINYINT(4)",
        "length" => 4,
    )
    "Pagename" => array (
        "type" => "VARCHAR(30)",
        "length" => 30,
    )

It works, but I want to make it more clean, like:
$pages_table = array (
    "GUID" => "CHAR(13)",
    "Number" => "TINYINT(4)",
    "Pagename" => "VARCHAR(30)",
);

And then if I iterate over the array, I want to set $new_length (INT) to the number between the brackets of the $new_type string:
while ($column = key($pages_table)) {
    $new_type = current($pages_table);
    $new_length = //Get this value from $new_type;
    if ($existing_table[$column]['length'] < $new_length) {
        $modify[$column] = $new_type;
    }
    next($pages_table);
}

A:

Use regular expressions:
preg_match('/\(\d+\)/', $subject, $matches);
$new_length = $matches[0];

You could shorten the pattern if it is guaranteed that there are no other numbers in the string:
preg_match('/\d+/', $subject, $matches);
$new_length = $matches[0];

while ($column = key($pages_table)) {
    $new_type = current($pages_table);
    $hasLength = (preg_match('/\(\d+\)/', $new_type, $matches) == 1);

    $new_length = intval($matches[0]);
    if ($hasLength && $existing_table[$column]['length'] < $new_length) {
        $modify[$column] => $new_type;
    }
    next($pages_table);
}

