$re = '/\A(?i:urn:(?!urn:)(?<nid>[a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{1,31}):(?<nss>(?:[-a-z0-9()+,.:=@;$_!*\'&~\/]|%[0-9a-f]{2})+)(?:\?\+(?<rcomponent>.*?))?(?:\?=(?<qcomponent>.*?))?(?:#(?<fcomponent>.*?))?)\z/';
$str = 'urn:example:a123,0%7C00~&z456/789?+abc?=xyz#12/3';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($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