$re = '/^# dev(?!2\b)[0-9]+(?:\R(?!# dev[0-9]).*)*/m';
$str = '# dev2
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]
# dev1
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]
# dev2
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]
# dev21
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]
# dev200
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]
# dev921
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^dev2-00.XXX.XXX.XXX
SAMETEXT %{URI} ^/XXX/
DIFFTEXT ^/XXX/(.*) https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-dev2.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XXX/$1 [X,Y]';
preg_match_all($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