$re = '/!\w+(?=[^`]*(?:`[^`]*`[^`]*)*$)/';
$str = '!yes
This is inline code `foo !no bar`.
!yes
Fenced code:
```txt
Some code
blah (!no) blah
```
only !yes should be matched not `!no`';
preg_match_all($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