$re = '/^(development|master|main|(((features|tests|bugfix|hotfix)\/(([0-9A-Za-z-_]+)|((\/[0-9A-Za-z-_]+)))|release\/(?:(\d+)\.)?(?:(\d+)\.)?(\d+)?(-(alpha|beta|rc)[0-9]))))/m';
$str = 'development
main
bugfix/user-list
bugfix/user_list
bugfix/123
bugfix/123/account-update
bugfix/123/account_update
bugfix/User_crud/account-update
bugfix/User_crud/account_update
tests/api
tests/123
tests/123/hello
release/1.0.1
release/1.0.1-beta1
release/1.0.1-beta
release/1.0.1-rc3
it should not match following
bugfix/
bugfix/-
bugfix/_
bugfix/-name
bugfix/_name
bugfix/-/name
bugfix/-/-
bugfix/-/_
release/v1.0.1';
preg_match_all($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