$re = '/\d+\K\./m';
$str = '1. Wallbaum, H., S. Krank,
3. Levinson, H.S., Highways, people,
4. Mercier, J., Equity, social justice,
225. Lemp, J.D., et al.,
17. Chi, G. and B. Stone,';
$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