$re = '/^(?!.*(?=(.))((.{9})+|(.(?!(?3)*$))+|(?(?=.(...)*$)(.(?!(.{27})*$)){7}|.)+)\1)/';
$str = '978531264436729518152684937895263471724918653361475892687392145519847326243156789';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($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