$re = '/^name=\"([^\"]*)\",value=(\[([^\]]+)\]|\"[^\"]+\")(.*)/m';
$str = 'name="Building",value="Southwest",descendants_action="success",operation="OVERRIDE"
name="Building",value=["Northeast","Northwest"],descendants_action="failure",operation="OVERRIDE"
name="Building",value="Southeast",descendants_action="success",operation="OVERRIDE"
name="Building",value="Northwest"
name="Building",value="Northwest",operation="OVERRIDE"';
$subst = "\1:\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