$re = '/^(|[0-9A-Z]{4}| {1}[0-9A-Z]{3}| {2}[0-9A-Z]{2}| {3}[0-9A-Z])$/m';
$str = '1 A3
1
A 1
X
43
D42
AB23';
preg_match_all($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