$re = '/(\.{0,1}\/?upgrade[^\w.\s]|\.{0,1}\/?upgrade$)/m';
$str = '/upgrade/user/Documents
/upgrade/user/Documents-list_-/
upgrade/user/Documents-list_-/
upgrade/
upgrade /home/user/Documents/file.name
/upgrade/user/Documents/foo.log
/upgrade.bar
/upgrade
/upgrade/xaf
/upgradegdfsf
./upgrade
./upgrade/srg
./upgradegdfsf/srgf
';
preg_match_all($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