$re = '/^[^a-zA-Z\n]+|[^a-zA-Z\n]+$|[^a-zA-Z\s]+/m';
$str = 'Hi, you!
No under_score!
* rem punct then spaces ';
$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