$re = '/(?=\bprintf\b|\bfprintf\b)/im';
$str = 'printf("\\nReboot not supported. Exiting instead.\\n");
fprintf(stderr, "FATAL: operation not supported!\\n");';
$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