$re = '/[$]row[[]([^\']+?)[\]]/m';
$str = '$row[number]; $row[user];
$row[\'number\']; $row[\'user\'];';
$subst = "$row['$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