$re = '/ +/m';
$str = 'The European l a n g u a g es ar e members of the same fa m i l y
. Their sep a rate e xi ste nce is a myth . F or s c i e n c e , music,
sport , etc, Europe uses the s a m e v oca bula ry. The languages o n l y d
i f f e r i n t heir grammar, their pro nu n c iation and their most common
words. Everyone realizes why a new common language would be desirable: one could
refuse to pay expensive translators.';
$subst = "(@)";
$result = preg_replace($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