$re = '~(^|/)[[:alpha:]]*[[:digit:]][[:alnum:]]*($|/)~m';
$str = '/example/endpoint/here/34456dwf45
/endpoint/fddk449372
/434236/example/endpoint';
$subst = "\1my_var\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