$re = '/<label for=\"(.*?)\" ?\>(.*?)\<br ?\/?>/';
$str = '<label for="user_login" >Username or Email Address<br />';
$subst = "<label for=\"$2\"><span class=\"label-text\">$1</span>";
$result = preg_replace($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