$re = '/\w+(\W)\w+(\1\w+)+/';
$str = 'abcd.efgh.1234.4567
abcd-efgh-1234-4567
abcd|efgh|1234|4567
abcd.efgh-1234|4567';
preg_match_all($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