$re = '/ORDER BY.*?(?=\s*LIMIT|\)|$)/mi';
$str = 'SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY name
SELECT a.* FROM (SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY name, created_at) AS a ORDER BY a.name
SELECT t0.* FROM table t0 WHERE t0.created_at IS NOT NULL ORDER BY t0.name, t0.created_at, t0.status LIMIT 10 OFFSET 10';
$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