$re = '~\([^)]*\)(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|([^a-z\d ])~i';
$str = 'Foo (.* ) bar blla (.* ) b*l?a$ && bla bla ';
$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