- strstr: documentation ( source)
- var_export: documentation ( source)
- explode: documentation ( source)
- preg_split: documentation ( source)
<?php
$input = "Some text [many][more][other][tags][here] and maybe some text here?";
$split = explode(' ', strstr($input, '['), 2);
var_export($split);
echo "\n----------------\n";
$split[0] = preg_split('~]\K~', $split[0], -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
var_export($split);