$re = '/^(\s+)(.*?) AS ([^,]+)/m';
$str = ' column1 AS alias1,
column2 AS alias2';
$subst = "\1'\3' => '\2'";
$result = preg_replace($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