$re = '/\[(([^][]|\[([^][]|\[[^][]*\])*\])*)\]/';
$str = '[0,0,0,[12,2],0,0,[12,[1,2,3]],12,0,[12,2,[2]],12,0,12,0,0]';
$subst = "{\1}";
$result = preg_replace($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