$re = '/([a-z])\1(\d)(\d)(?=[a-z])/m';
$str = 'aa11bb123cc3333dd12eeeff3';
$subst = "<\1>\1<\2><\3>";
$result = preg_replace($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