$re = '/(?<=\[)([\w:\/]+\s[+\-]\d{4})(?=\])/';
$str = '127.0.0.1 - - [07/Dec/2014:06:43:43 -0800] \\"OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0\\" 200 - \\"-\\" \\"Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.3.2-1ubuntu4.24 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8k mod_apreq2-20090110/2.7.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 (internal dummy connection)\\';
preg_match_all($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