$re = '/<tag>.*?\K(?!<!CDATA\[[^\n\]]*\]>(?:[^>]|$))((?:<!|!<)CDATA\[.*?\]+>+)(?=.*<\/tag>)/m';
$str = '<tag>data...<!CDATA[...]]>...otherdata..!<CDATA[....]>>....</tag>
<tag>data......otherdata..!<CDATA[....]>>....</tag>
<tag>data...!<CDATA[|]]>...otherdata......</tag>
<tag>data...<!CDATA[asdfghjkl]>...otherdata......</tag>
<tag>data...<!CDATA[...]]>...otherdata..!<CDATA[....]>>....
data...<!CDATA[...]]>...otherdata..!<CDATA[....]>>....</tag>
<tag2>data...<!CDATA[...]]>...otherdata..!<CDATA[....]>>....</tag2>';
$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