$re = '/^.*?1.{0,5}2.*|^.*?2(*COMMIT)3.*/m';
$str = '1.....23
1.....21
23......
12.....1
1...2...
....23..
213....2
1......2
213....3
2.....21';
preg_match_all($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