$re = '/^[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9][0-9]{7}$/m';
$str = 'ab1234567
AB1234567
a12345678
AB12345678
aB123456
abc123456
abcdefghi
1b2345678';
preg_match_all($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