$re = '/(?<=ref{)[^}]*(?=})/im';
$str = '"text \\ref{?bar labels precision} and more text \\ref{?table column alignment}", "text \\ref{?table space} }';
preg_match_all($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