$re = '/(?<=\S) {2,}(?=\S)/m';
$str = ' <Directory "THEDIRECTORY">
<LimitExcept GET POST>
deny from all
</LimitExcept>
Options -Indexes -MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>';
$subst = " ";
$result = preg_replace($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