$re = '/<fontColor:#([a-z0-9]*)>(.*?)<\/fontColor>/im';
$str = '<fontColor:#ff0000> January 30, 2011\\n </fontColor><fontColor:#ff0010> Feb 1, 1999\\n </fontColor><fontColor:#ff0050> Feb 2, 1970\\n </fontColor>
';
preg_match_all($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