$re = '/\$this->assertAttributeEquals\(([$\[\]|a-zA-Z1-9 ,]+), \'([a-zAZ])([a-zAZ]+)\', ([$1-9a-zA-Z\->]+)\);/m';
$str = '$this->assertAttributeEquals($target, \'thevalue\', $object);';
$subst = "$this->assertEquals($1, $4->get\U$2\E$3());";
$result = preg_replace($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