$re = '/\[\b([^\][]+)\b]/';
$str = '[me]: http://example.com
[her]: http://somewhere.com
[1]: http://nhs.net
[2]: http://test.com
[google it]: http://google.com';
preg_match_all($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