Newbie needs help

$content = "... a bunch of text with some <!--protected-->protected information<!--/protected--> with some more text with some more <!--protected--><table><tr><td>more protected text</td></tr></table><!--/protected--> and even <!--protected--><b>some protected content>b><!--/protected-->"; I want to replace any content between these tags: <!--protected--><!--/protected--> with say $replacewith = "<strong>protected content</strong>"; $content = " a bunch of text with some <strong>protected content</strong> with some more text with some more <strong>protected content</strong> and even <strong>protected content</strong>"; It's a little more involved than str_replace which is about the limit of my knowledge. Any takers - to take pity on me? I'm trying to figure out some funky WordPress stuff as it is. John