$re = '/[\{uD83C}-\x{DBFF}\x{DC00}-\x{DFFF}]+/m';
$str = 'This is 😛 a test with 🙌 emojis in the 🐦 string
';
$subst = "<i>$0</i>";
$result = preg_replace($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