$re = '/v?(?:(?:(?P<epoch>[0-9]+)!)?(?P<release>[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)*)(?P<pre>[-_\.]?(?P<pre_l>(a|b|c|rc|alpha|beta|pre|preview))[-_\.]?(?P<pre_n>[0-9]+)?)?(?P<post>(?:-(?P<post_n1>[0-9]+))|(?:[-_\.]?(?P<post_l>post|rev|r)[-_\.]?(?P<post_n2>[0-9]+)?))?(?P<dev>[-_\.]?(?P<dev_l>dev)[-_\.]?(?P<dev_n>[0-9]+)?)?)(?:\+(?P<local>[a-z0-9]+(?:[-_\.][a-z0-9]+)*))?/m';
$str = '1.0.0.1
1.0.1
1.0
1
1.0rc1
1.0.0-rc
';
preg_match_all($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