$re = '/(\d\d{0,1}){1}(:\d\d{0,1}){0,1}(\sa.m|\sp.m){0,1}/';
$str = 'set alarm at 33:20 p.m';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($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