$re = '/{{\s*(\w*)\s*}}(?=[^%]*%})/m';
$str = 'sometext {% {{ var1 }} middletext {{ var2 }} %} moretext {{ varx }} {% {{ var3 }} %}';
$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