$re = '/(?>(?<=class=")|(?!^)\G)(?>\b([-\w]++)\b(?=[^"]*?\s\1[\s"])\s+|[-\w]+\s+\K)/';
$str = '<li class="a-b a-c 3 2 1 is it this or this is it or it is this 1 2 3 a-c a-b">';
$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