$re = '/^\/(sites\/?)?(.*)$/m';
$str = '/sites/global
/page/file.ext
/sites/other
/page.ext
/intranet/global
http://intranet/global';
$subst = "/sites/\2";
$result = preg_replace($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