$re = '/\b(?=(?:[0-9]*[a-zA-Z]){2})(?=(?:[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]){2})[a-zA-Z0-9]{8}\b/';
$str = 'papave23 ciao il mio pin papaver1 è reeredji332ji con vaff8loe 1234567o 123t123t papavero 9o 123t123y';
$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