$re = '/([abc])([+-]?)=([+-]?\w+)(?:([+-])(\w+))?/m';
$str = 'a=1, a=+1, a=-1, a=b, a=b+100, a=b-100, b+=10, b+=+10, b+=-10, b+=b, b+=b+100, b+=b-100, c-=101, c-=+101, c-=-101, c-=b, c-=b+101, c-=b-101';
preg_match_all($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