answer:I usually just write my own. Two arrays, str_replace or preg_replace, and you’re done (unless you want to add some extra safety measures). For example, for your two examples, I’d do this: $search [equal] array(’/\*(.*?)\*/is’, ’/\_(.*?)\_/is’); $replace [equal] array(’<em>$1</em>’, ’<strong>$1</strong>’); $string [equal] preg_replace($search, $replace, $string);