$re = '/^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(@)([a-zA-Z0-9]+(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+))*$/';
$str = 'mrk447@gmail.co.uk';
preg_match_all($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