$re = '/(\%This\.|\&)[A-Za-z]+\.DESCR/m';
$str = '%This.oPosition.DESCR =
&data.DESCR =';
$subst = "name: $1; data = $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