Q:

PHP preg_replace remove first HTML element in string

I would like to remove the entire first element of a html string (it is always a paragraph) in PHP. 
my current approach  is using:
$passage = preg_replace('/.*?\b'. '</p>'. '\b/s', '', $passage, 1);

This doesn't work because of the special characters in </p>
I know that the following will remove everything from the string before the word 'one' appears
$passage = preg_replace('/.*?\b'. 'one'. '\b/s', '', $passage, 1);

A:

You have to escape '/' with a backslash if you're using it as a delimiter: So it's <\/p>
Edit: You should add a ^ to mark the start of the string. 
Another solution: You can use other delimiters like #. 
Full code $passage = preg_replace('#^.*?</p>#is', '', $passage, 1);

