$re = '/^([Gg][Ii][Rr]\s*0[Aa]{2})|((([A-Za-z][0-9]{1,2})|(([A-Za-z][A-Ha-hJ-Yj-y][0-9]{1,2})|(([A-Za-z][0-9][A-Za-z])|([A-Za-z][A-Ha-hJ-Yj-y][0-9]?[A-Za-z]))))\s*[0-9][A-Za-z]{2})$/m';
$str = 'GIR 0AA
GIR0AA
LS96RE
LS9 6RE
BD17 7DQ
SW1A 2AA
SW1A2AA
SW22A2AA';
preg_match_all($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