$re = '/[.\w]+\.(\w+)/';
$str = 'name.space.class
name.space.class<other.name.space.class1>
name.space.class<other.name.space.class1, shortSpace.class2>
class
class2
class3
Applet.Repository';
$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