$re = '/(?m)(^\[assembly: System\.Reflection\.AssemblyVersion\(")[\d.]+/m';
$str = '//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
// This code was generated by a tool.
// Runtime Version:4.0.30319.42000
//
// Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
// the code is regenerated.
// </auto-generated>
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyVersion("1.1.31.0")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyCompany("Name")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyProduct("Name")]
[assembly: System.Reflection.AssemblyCopyright("Name")]
// Setting ComVisible to false makes the types in this assembly not visible
// to COM components. If you need to access a type in this assembly from
// COM, set the ComVisible attribute to true on that type.
[assembly: ComVisible(false)]';
$subst = "${1}2.0.0.0_delta";
$result = preg_replace($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