$re = '/^(?=.{0,20}$)(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+(?:-[a-zA-Z0-9]+)?)?$/m';
$str = '12345abc90
12345abc9012345abc90
12345abc90-12345abc9
12345abc90-12345abc90';
preg_match_all($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