$re = '@^/(media/catalog/product/cache)/\d+/thumbnail/(\d+x\d+)/[a-z0-9]+/(\S+)@m';
$str = '/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/543x403/db978388cfd007780066eaab38556cef/l/e/legal_slide01.jpg
# check if match with above:
/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/543x403/l/e/legal_slide01.jpg
/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/543x403/db978388cfd007780066eaab38556cef/n/u/number1.png
# check if match with above:
/pub/media/catalog/product/cache/543x403/n/u/number1.png';
$subst = "/pub/$1/$2/$3";
$result = preg_replace($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