$re = '/(A[^A]*?B[^B]*?C)/m';
$str = 'A|B|A|F|B|C|D|E|F|G
A|B|C|F|B|C|D|E|F|G';
$subst = "[\1]";
$result = preg_replace($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