$re = '/(?=.{30})(.{1,29})\s/m';
$str = 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog near the bank of the river by 123 4567 8901234 567 89012 3456 789abc 012345 67890';
$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