$re = '/(?<=\$[A-Za-z0-9\-\_ ]+)(?=(?:,|$))/i';
$str = '$a, $b, $c, $hi = "", $na';
$subst = " = NULL";
$result = preg_replace($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