$re = '/(?:\b|\d+)([a-z])|[\d+ +!.@]/';
$str = 'Th3 qu!ck br0wn f0x jumps 0v3r th3 l@zy d0g. ';
$subst = "\U\1";
$result = preg_replace($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