$re = '/\/\/[a-z]+\.(?:[a-z]+\:?[0-9]+?|[a-z0-9]+\.[a-z]+)\/\bassets\b\/\bread\b\/((\w)+\.png)/';
$str = '//api.localhost:8000/assets/read/1453746564131_56a669843a3c1dac74170930.png
//api.olguat2.ca/assets/read/1453746564131_56a669843a3c1dac74170938.png
//api.authoring.ca/assets/read/1453746564131_56a669843a3c1dac741709333.png
//api.whatever.ca/assets/read/1453746564131_56a669843a3c1dac741709333.png
//api.whatever:8000/assets/read/1453746564131_56a669843a3c1dac741709333.png
';
$subst = "$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