$re = '/string_start (.*) string_middle (.*) string_end/m';
$str = 'string_start part 1 text string_middle part 2 text string_end';
$subst = "string_start new part 1 string_middle new part 2 string_end";
$result = preg_replace($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