$re = '/(?:^(?=({\w+(?1)?})$)|\G(?!\A)){(\w+)/m';
$str = '{pppppp
{a}
{a{b}}
{a{b{c}}}
{a{b{c{d}}}}
{a{bb{ccc{dd}}}}
a
{{a}
{a}}
{a}b
z{a{b}}
';
preg_match_all($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