$re = '/^(\w{2})/m';
$str = 'NY104670000 12/31/0112/28/0112/28/01
279700000 12/31/0112/28/0112/28/01
NY100600000 12/31/0112/29/0112/29/01
NC279280000 12/31/0112/29/0112/29/01
NC278600000 12/31/0112/30/0112/30/01';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
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