$re = '/^(?:(\d{1,3}\.?(?:\d{1,3}\.?)*)?) ?(\w[\w \t]{4,39})/m';
$str = 'section
1 section
2. section
2.1 subsection
2.1.1 subsection
2.1.1. subsection
2.1.1. subsection this is a test
2.1.1.
';
preg_match_all($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