$re = '/([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]*)@[a-zA-Z0-9-_.]*.gov{0,64}/m';
$str = 'john@president.gov
john1@president.gov
john-1@president.gov
Johnnnyboy@president.gov
betty@vicepres.com
dan-4@vicepres.net
thisisa64pluscharstringthisisa64pluscharstringthisisa64pluscharstring@thisisa64pluscharstring.com';
$subst = "$1,look i changed this";
$result = preg_replace($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