$re = '/\bfrom\b(?!\s*#)([^w]*(?:\bw(?!here\b)[^w]*)*)\bwhere\b/';
$str = 'select ... from course c
where id = (select ... from student where ...)
select ... from #bar
where id = (select ... from student where ...)';
preg_match_all($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