$re = '/(^nvsm)(\-)(apis|dshm|cli)(\-|\_)(\d{2}|\(\d{2}\))(\.)(0?[1-9]|1[012])(\.|\-)(\d{1}|\d{2})(\-|\_|\.)(\d{1}|\d{2}|all|el\d{1})(\.)(el\d{1}|(deb)|(noarch))(|(\.)((x86_64)|(rpm))(\.)(rpm))$/im';
$str = 'nvsm-dshm-18.12-2.el7.noarch.rpm';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php