$re = '/^(?P<qualifier>[+?~-])?(?P<is_a>a)(?:[:])?(?P<a_mechanism>.+)?/im';
$str = 'a
a:example.com
+a:example.com
a:mailers.example.com
~a:mailers.example.com
a/24
-a:offsite.example.com/24
?a:example.com/24
+mx:mail.example.com
mx
ip4:192.168.11.0/32';
preg_match_all($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