$re = '/^(.*)(-)(\d{1})(.[^.]+)$/m';
$str = 'P123456_1_flying-elephant-100x70-1.pdf';
$subst = "\1\20\3\4";
$result = preg_replace($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