$re = '/((?:\t| {4})+)/';
$str = 'def calc_value(a, b, c): if a>b+c: return a else: return b';
$subst = "\n\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