$re = '/no_reply:[^:]+:incomplete/m';
$str = 'opencase_2,initial_state:inquiry,inquiry:no_reply:initial_state:incomplete::,inquiry:reask:secondary_state:complete::';
preg_match_all($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