$re = '/\s+\-\s+|\s+\[|\]/';
$str = '#artist# - #song# [#id#]
/ - | \\[|\\]/g
# or even better
/\\s+\\-\\s+|\\s+\\[|\\]/g
';
preg_match_all($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