$re = '/^(a|b|start)(\d*%)?(\d*(s|ms))?/xmi';
$str = 'b50%25ms
a500ms50ms
a500msb50ms
start200s
start20%12ms
a600msb200ms
astart
a
b
Invalid
a500ms50%
ams500b #ms does not have duration
';
preg_match_all($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