$re = '/^[a-z][a-z\d]*(?:_[a-z\d]+)*$/mi';
$str = '_
A
abcd
a_2_c_3
aB_C
1abc
ab__c
a_b_
Humpty Dumpty
';
preg_match_all($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