This is likely the best way UNLESS you want to move the pointer of the array, or remove the first item in the array.
~~~
Example:
<?php
$stack = array("orange", "banana", "apple", "raspberry");
$fruit = array_shift($stack);
print_r($stack);
?>
~~~

The above example will output:

~~~
Array
(
[0] => banana
[1] => apple
[2] => raspberry
)
and orange will be assigned to $fruit.
~~~

So in my example, you get the first element of the array to a variable, but it also removes it from the array.

Not sure if you would want that behavior.

If I were being picky and wanted to clean up your code

~~~
$str="info1|info2|info3";
$fields=explode("|",$str);
//make sure there is an element first
if(isset($fields[0])) {
echo $fields[0];
} else {
echo 'No Data';
}
~~~

Now, I often only need the first field, to do so, I use this code:

echo explode("|",$str)[0];

Or, you could do:

$str="info1|info2|info3";
// true - return string before first occurrence of "|" (exclusive)
$firstField = strstr($str,'|',true);

But note that strstr() returns (bool)false if "|" does not occur in $str.

Thank you @Demaestro and @penders!

The strstr function is perfect! I didn't know about it! This is exactly what I was searching for. I found it too bad to use the explode function, which was splitting the whole string and building an array, just to get the first element. The strstr is certainly wasting way less resources. I know this is not going to drastically speed up my pages, but still.

Thank you again.