如何删除字符串中的单个字符？

Question

I have some string with this style:

$var = "a - it is a string";       // I want this output: 'it is a string'
$var = "m - it is second string";  // I want this output: 'it is second string'

So here is my pattern:

[single character in the first of string]<space>-<space>{anything} // I want just {anything}

How can I do that in PHP REGEX?

Here is my try (altought does not work and I'm sure it is really far of what I want)

preg_replace("/^\w\s+-\s+/","",$str);

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Edit:

It should be noted that I use Persian characters in reality. Also here is a example:

$var = 'ی - این یک متن تست است';

Answer 1

You can use this:

$var = 'ی - این یک متن تست است';

echo preg_replace('/^\p{L}\h+-\h+/u', '', $var);
//=> این یک متن تست است

Regex used is:

^\p{L}  # match unicode letter at start
\h+     # match 1 or more horizontal space
-       # match 1 hyphen
\h+     # match 1 or more horizontal space

Important is use of /u modifier for unicode support in this regex.