<?php
$txt='A B C ()';
$re1='.*?'; # Non-greedy match on filler
$re2='(\\s+)'; # White Space 1
$re3='.*?'; # Non-greedy match on filler
$re4='(\\(.*\\))'; # Round Braces 1
if ($c=preg_match_all ("/".$re1.$re2.$re3.$re4."/is", $txt, $matches))
{
$ws1=$matches[1][0];
$rbraces1=$matches[2][0];
print "($ws1) ($rbraces1) \n";