$re = '/\d_([a-zA-Z_]+)_[0-9]+_/';
$str = ' abc_account2621_activity_20161116_20161117_030627_311999667.csv
abc_account2621_click_2016111606_20161116_221031_311735299.csv
abc_account2621_impression_2016111605_20161116_221808_311685411.csv
abc_account2621_rich_media_2016111606_20161116_192542_311735300.csv
abc_account2621_match_table_actwd342ivity_cats_20161116_20161117_0311_31.csv.gz
abc_account2621_match_table_activity_tdwypes_20161116_20161117_0342_31.csv.gz';
preg_match_all($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