$re = '/^(?:(?!.*b)(?<pre1>.*)|(?<pre2>.*)(b(?!c))(?<post>.*))$/m';
$str = 'abcd
abd
ad';
$subst = "$<pre1>$<pre2>$<post>bc";
$result = preg_replace($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