$re = '/\{\s*method: ?["\'](\w+)["\']\s*\};/';
$str = ' { method: "GET" };';
$subst = "{method: \"$1\", credentials: \"same-origin\"};";
$result = preg_replace($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