$re = '/^\d+\s+(?<code>(20[012])).*(action:(?<!read))?/m';
$str = '1 200 file:test01.txt, action:read, User:dummy
2 201 file:test01.txt, action:write, User:dummy
3 202 file:unknown, keepalive , User:dummy
4 450 file:test01.txt, action:read, User:dummy
5 500 file:test01.txt, action:read, User:dummy
6 201 profiles, action:reload, User:dummy';
preg_match_all($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