Read First 3 characters and last 4 characters of string

Ok, I am working on something and I need to take a variable (with string information) and look at the first 3 characters and the last 4 characters. I have been baffled as how to do this but I know it can be done (Because everything can be done in PHP!) haha.

<?php
$string = "Qwertyuiop";
$toptail = preg_replace('/(...).*(....)/','$1$2',$string);
print $toptail;
?>

You could also have a look at the strlen() and substr() functions.

PHP: Select all

<?php
$string = "abcdefgh";

$first = substr($string, 0, 3);    // returns "abc"
$last = substr($string, -1, 4);    // returns "efgh"

echo "First 3: ".$first." and the last 4: ".$last;
// First 3: abc and the last 4: efgh
?>

To specify:
substr(string,start,length)

start =
- positive number to start from beginning of the string, negative number to start from end of string.
- The size of the number means from where the count should start.
(3 means start from third character from the beginning of string)

length = how many characters from 'start'

P.s.: I didn't test the code.