$re = '/(?:A[B-H]|B[C-H]|B[C-H]|D[E-H]|E[FGH]|F[GH]|GH)(?:D[E-M]|E[F-M]|F[G-M]|G[H-M]|H[I-M]|I[J-M]|J[KLM]|LM)/';
$str = 'AHDM
BCEF
FAIL
CBFE';
preg_match_all($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