$re = '/(?P<Alternation1>
\$\{(?P<braced>[_a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*(?::[_a-zA-Z]\w*)+)
\}
)
|
(?P<Alternation2>
\$(?P<named>[_a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*(?::[_a-zA-Z]\w*)+
)
)
/x';
$str = 'asdasd $asd:sd + ${asd123:asd} $HOME $$asd';
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