$re = '/^[^._ ](?:[\w-]|\.[\w-])+[^._ ]$/m';
$str = 'username
Username
UserName
user-name
11username
user11name
username11
user_name
user__name
us_er__na__m_e
user.name
u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e
white space
whiteSpaceBeforeWord
whiteSpaceAfterWord
_username
_user_name
user__name_
us_er__na__m_e
user..name
.user.name
user.name.';
preg_match_all($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