$re = '/(<body[^>]*>)()/m';
$str = '<body tag>
<body
tag- oh no it matched across
multiple lines>
<body alink="some_image_name_with_<brackets>_.png" >';
preg_match_all($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