$re = '/^[A-Z]:Y(,[A-Z]:Y)*$/m';
$str = 'S:Y,P:Y,T:Y,A:Y
S:Y,P:Y,T:Y,A:Y,C:Y
S:Y,P:Y,T:Y,A:Y,C:Y,D:Y
A:Y
B:Y
D:Y,F:Y
All the following should never match. Cos 1 or more of them has :N.
S:Y,P:N,T:Y,A:Y
S:Y,P:Y,T:Y,A:Y,C:N
S:Y,P:Y,T:N,A:Y,C:N,D:Y
A:N
B:N
D:Y,F:N';
preg_match_all($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