$re = '/(?P<clientIP>[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}) (?P<identd>[^ ]+) (?P<userid>[^ ]+) \[(?P<timesptamp>[^]]+)] "(?P<request>[^"]+)" (?P<statusCode>[^ ]+) (?P<objectSize>[^ ]+)/m';
$str = '---apache---
127.0.0.1 - peter [9/Feb/2017:10:34:12 -0700] "GET /sample-image.png HTTP/2" 200 1479
127.0.0.1 - frank [10/Oct/2000:13:55:36 -0700] "GET /apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 2326
';
preg_match_all($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