$re = '/<foo>(.*?)<\/foo>/m';
$str = '<foo><some special chars>!@#$%^&*</foo> sure, why not
<foo>Lorem</foo>
<foo>ipsum</foo>
<foo>sit</foo>
<foo>dolor</foo>
<foo>amet</foo>
<bar>elm stuff</bar>
more stuff for you <foo> something </foo> and even more stuff <foo>yes</foo>
Let\'s deal with nesting: <foo> some text <foo> a child foo!</foo> let\'s close the parent</foo>';
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