$re = '/\b(APP\d{1,5})\w*|\w+\s*/m';
$str = 'APP00001Was APP00002TEST APP00003Blah blah APP00004 Apple APP11112OrANGE APP
';
$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