$re = '/urn:mystuff:v1:(ABC\.([^A]\S*|A([^c.]\S*)?|Ac([^m.]\S*)?|Acm([^e.]\S*)?)\.\S+\.a\d+\.v\d+|ABC\.Acme\.\S+\.a\d+\.\d+\.\d+)$/m';
$str = 'urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Test.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Acme.MyData.a1.0.1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.ARGTE.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.A.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Ac.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Acm.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Acmy.MyData.a1.v1
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Acme.MyData.a1.v1
But I would like the following to fail
urn:mystuff:v1:ABC.Acme.MyData.a1.v1';
preg_match_all($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