$re = '/^(?:([a-z]+)\s)?(?:([a-z]+)\s)(?:([a-z]+)\s)?str$/m';
$str = 'block str
block right str
block right left str
block right left up str
block right left up down str
str
block
block right
block right left
block right left up
block right left up down';
preg_match_all($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