$re = '/^aaa accounting system default (\n action-type |)start-stop(\n |) group tacacs\+/m';
$str = 'aaa accounting system default
action-type start-stop
group tacacs+
aaa accounting system default start-stop group tacacs+';
preg_match_all($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