$re = '/\{\{c\d+::(?P<value>[^:}]+)(?::{0,2}([^}]+))?\}\}/m';
$str = '{{c1::tiger}} is a kind of {{c2::animal::something movable}}';
preg_match_all($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