$re = '/(?<protocol>(?:http|ftp|irc)s?:\/\/)?(?:(?<user>[^:\n\r]+):(?<pass>[^@\n\r]+)@)?(?<host>(?:www\.)?(?:[^:\/\n\r]+)(?::(?<port>\d+))?)\/?(?<request>[^?#\n\r]+)?\??(?<query>[^#\n\r]*)?\#?(?<anchor>[^\n\r]*)?/mx';
$str = 'http://user:pass@some.example.com:80/directory/sub/place?C=M;O=A#nth
http://some.example.com/some/path/to/a/file.bin?request;part=1#somewhere
https://www.example.com
ircs://example.server.net:6697/#channel
irc://irc.example.org/channel
ftp://www.place.example.gov/
www.places.to.be
somewhere.to/go';
preg_match_all($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