$re = '/(?im)^\D*(\d+(?:[- ][a-z ]*[a-z])?)/m';
$str = 'FOO 288-B BAR <MATCH: "288-B BAR">
BURT 69/ERNIE 96/KERMIT 287 <MATCH: "69">
53 ORANGE <MATCH: "53 ORANGE">
APPLE 457-W <MATCH: "457-W">';
preg_match_all($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