$re = '/([\[\]])|(;)|(\{(?=[a-zA-Z\s]))|((?<=[a-zA-Z\s])\})|(\{(?=\d))|((?<=\d)\})/';
$str = 'Authors: [{Steven Brown}]; Dates: [{2010}]
Authors: [{John Hawk},{William Green},{Michael Ron}]; Dates: [{2001},{2002},{2003}]';
preg_match_all($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