$re = '/([\s\[\{,:]+)(?!\-?\.?\d|false\W|true\W)([^\'\":,\s\]\}]+)([:\s,\}\]_\-\{\[]|$)/';
$str = '[
{
path: \'/my-profile\', name: \'my_profile\', component: MyProfile,
child-ren: [
{
path: \'info\', name: \'my_info\', component: BasicInForm,
},
{
path: \'photos\', name: \'my_photos\', component: MyPhot\'os,
},
{
path: \'questions\', name: \'my_questions\', component: MyQuestions,
},
],
},
{
path: \'/\', name: \'register\', component: RegisterFormFlow,
},
]';
$subst = "\1'\2'\3";
$result = preg_replace($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