$re = '/(\d{3})[\.\s]?(\d{3})[\.\s]?(\d{3})[-\s]?(\d{2})/m';
$str = 'CPF for Regular Expressions:
89812312545
898 123 125 45
898.123.125-45';
$subst = "The CPF: $1.$2.$3-$4";
$result = preg_replace($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