$re = '`\[[^][]*](*SKIP)(*F)|(?:https?://)?(?:www\.)?[\w@:%.+~#=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,6}\b[\w-@:%+.~#?&/=]*`m';
$str = 'www.example.com
http://example.com.nz
example.com
http://www.example.com?2rjl6
example.com/first/second
https://example.us.edi?34535/534534?dfg=g&fg
etc...
I want no match if any of the above URLs are enclosed in square brackets [ ] like this:
[www.example.com]
[http://example.com.nz]
etc...
.aaaa
e.g.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur [http://example.com.nz] llamcorper et lacus. Morbi sodales convallis lectus a efficitur: example.com/first/second vitae nisl placerat.
Fusce non ipsum a augue http://example.com.nz http://www.example.com?2rjl6 aculis augue. Nullam eu nulla lectus.';
preg_match_all($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