$re = '/__ent_0*(\d+)_/m';
$str = '__ent_00000_Bye bye StackOverflow! __ent_00001_';
$subst = "<ph$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