$re = '/(?:\b((?:public|protected|private)\s+)|((?:abstract|static)\s+)|(final\s+)|((?:volatile|synchronized)\s+)|((?:native|strictfp)\s+))+/m';
$str = ' static public void main(String[] args)';
$subst = "$1$2$3$4$5";
$result = preg_replace($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