$re = '/(?i)\b(drop|keep|where|rename|obs)\s*=\s*(?|(\w+(?:\s+\w+)*)(?=\s+\w+\s+=|$)|\((.*?)\))/m';
$str = 'drop = blah blah blah something keep = bar foo nlah aaaa rename = (a=b d=e) obs=4 where = (foo > 45 and bar == 35)';
preg_match_all($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