$re = '/^(?=[^-]+-([^=]+)=.)([^-]*?)\1([^-]*)-[^=]+=\2\3$/m';
$str = 'abc-b=ac
abcde-cd=abe
ab-a=b
abcde-a=bcde
abcde-cde=ab
abc-a=c
abcde-bd=ace
abc-cd=ab
abcde-a=cde
abc-abc=
abc-=abc';
preg_match_all($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