$re = '/(id=").+style="(.+)/m';
$str = 'id="**02_item2_02" duration="29" style="**joe"
id="02_item3_01" duration="35.5" style="joseph"';
$subst = "$1$2 blah blah blah! text from the script";
$result = preg_replace($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