replacing string without removing brackets

[DiavolO]

First of all, I want to apologise for my incorrect english language

Secondly with php i'm 'not very newbie', but there is enough space to improve...

Also, I have problem with regular expresions:

I have a string which is formed like:

any word/(-s) ( any word/(-s) )

or

any word/(-s) ( any word/(-s) ) ( any word/(-s) )

 

just like:

Information (Technologies)

or

Speciality (Information Technologies) (High Grade)

 

what i need is to shorten it with only first letters of each word, like:

I (T)

or

S (IT) (HG)

 

leaving all the brackets.

Also, i have already managed with some code, which is not working correctly:

 

$test3 = str_replace(" and ", " ", $subcat5); //replacing 'and' with space
$test4 = explode(' ',$test3); 
foreach($test4 as $v){$test5.=substr($v,0,1);}
$spec_trump = strtoupper($test5); //if needed

so if string is: Speciality (Information Technologies) (High Grade)

result will be: S(T(G

what i need is: S (IT) (HG)

 

 

Can anyone help me out, with this stuff?

 

 

[JAY6390]

$result = preg_replace('/(\b[a-z])[a-z]+\s?/i', '$1', $subject);

 

[DiavolO]

Nice! Its working great! 

Could you explain

 '/(\b[a-z])[a-z]+\s?/i', '$1',  

this code piece?

 

I'd like to learn and understand this.