$re = '/^(?=.*\b\d{2}\.\d{2}.*dollars)((\b\d{2}\.\d{2})(?:.*)(dollars)(?:.*))/m';
$str = '78.00600.00 dollars test';
$subst = "$2 $3";
$result = preg_replace($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