$re = '/([^=\s]+)\s*=\s*("[^"]+"|[^#]+?)\s*(?:$|#)/m';
$str = 'foo = "/usr/local/bin" # path string
eggs = [0, 1, 2, 3, 1]
spam = True # boolean
bar = 42
test = "this will be a big #fail"
path = "/home/tmp/valid#file#name" # comment';
preg_match_all($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