$re = '/a\.b(\((?>[^()]++|(?1))*\))/m';
$str = 'a.b();
a.b(param1=1);
a.b(param1=1, param2=2);
a.b(param1=d(abc="123"))';
$subst = "$0.c()";
$result = preg_replace($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