$re = '/^172\.18\.(([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.)([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9][0-9]|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-9])$/m';
$str = '172.18.0.255
185.25.14.263
172.15.12.0
172.18.255.255
';
$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