$re = '/^(?:[a-zA-Z]\d{3}|\d{3}[a-zA-Z\d]|\d[a-zA-Z\d][a-zA-Z\d]\d)$/m';
$str = 'A123
123A
1234
1A23
12A4
A12A
';
preg_match_all($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