$re = '/(url\([\'"]?)(?:\.\.\/|http:\/\/[^)]*\/)?/m';
$str = 'url("assets/images/pic.jpg")
url(\'assets/images/pic.jpg\')
url("../images/pic.jpg")
url(../images/pic.jpg)
url(\'../images/pic.jpg\')
url(\'http://website.com/images/pic.jpg\')
';
$subst = "$1file://dir/first/";
$result = preg_replace($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