$re = '/(public|protected|private)|(abstract|static)|(final)|(volatile)|(synchronized)|(native)|(strictfp)/m';
$str = ' static public void main(String[] args)';
$subst = "$1$2$3$4$5$6$7";
$result = preg_replace($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