$re = '/\'(status)\'\s:\s(\d+)/';
$str = 'complete: task = { \'status\' : 0, \'task\' : \'{ \'id\' : 9149263125397547267, \'process\' : \'A-SIGN\', \'in\' : \'/file/log4j-api-2.11.0.jar\' }\' }';
$subst = "$1 : $2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$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