$re = '/(?<=\[[^][]*)\s+(?=[^][]*])/m';
$str = '[ a b c ] d e f
[Skip a Payment] [decimal](18,2)';
$subst = "_";
$result = preg_replace($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