$re = '/m=(\w+)/';
$str = '2016-03-08 11:23:25 test_data:0317: m=string_I_want max_count: 17655, avg_size: 320, avg_rate: 165';
preg_match($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