$re = '/(^([^|\r\n]*\|){0,8}[^|\r\n]*$)|(^([^|\r\n]*\|){10,1000}[^|\r\n]*$)/m';
$str = 'Susan|Ward |1 |1 |1 |1 |0 |||3250905
Allen|Doe|4 |1 |1 |1 |0 ||
some text
text
more text in the same column|3250061
Mary|James|4 |1 |1 |1 |0 |||3250061 Albert|Nordling|1 |1 |1 |0 |0 |||900434
Henry|Johnson|1 |1 |1 |0 |0 |||900434
Tony|Anderson |1 |1 |1 |1 |0 |||3250905 ';
preg_match_all($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