$re = '~^(\w{3}).*?(\d{3,})?\.\w+$~m';
$str = 'Some1String2That3Can4Include5Digits_123456.ext
SomeStringThatCanNOTIncludeDigits123456.ext
SomeString_12.ext
SomeString12.ext';
$subst = "\1\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