$re = '/(?=
[ ]{0,8}? \d{1,9}
( .* ) $ # (1)
)
[ \d]{9}
(?= \1 $ )
/xm';
$str = 'examples of valid strings
123456789
kfasdf 3456789asdf
a 1
and examples of invalid strings
12345 789
1 9
a 678a
';
preg_match_all($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