$re = '/(;.*)\b(TODO\b.*)/m';
$str = '; comment that contains TODO - correct
TODO := 5 ; comment that isn\'t valid t-o-d-o
; regular comment
_x := 5 ; this is also valid TODO';
$subst = "$1\"address\": ";
$result = preg_replace($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