$re = '/(?!(.*(?:[ -\/:-@[-`{-~À-ÿ].*){4}))^[A-Za-z\d -\/:-@[-`{-~À-ÿ]{8,30}$/m';
$str = 'AABBCCDD
OK -- Match
aabbccdd
OK -- Match
11111111
OK -- Match
A1A1b2b2
OK -- Match
A@~D1dIo
OK -- Match
AAB BCC0
OK -- Match (1 special, it\'s okay)
AABBCC@@
OK -- Match (2 specials, it\'s okay)
AABB C
OK -- Match (3 specials, it\'s okay)
A@~` C:
OK -- Match (3 specials, it\'s okay)
AABB
OK -- Should\'t match and didn\'t match (Less than 8 symbols)
AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNNOOPP
OK -- Should\'t match and didn\'t match (More than 30 symbols)
AA@@@@BB
ERROR ! -- Shouldn\'t match (4 specials, it\'s forbidden)
AAB B
ERROR ! -- Shouldn\'t match (4 specials, it\'s forbidden)
AABB@@@@
ERROR ! -- Shouldn\'t match (4 specials, it\'s forbidden)
';
preg_match_all($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