$re = '/(?m)^(\d+)\s+\d+/m';
$str = '1 4 23 44 52 62
2 3 5 5 5
5 2 3 4';
$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