$re = '/\[(?<name>vimeo)[^\]]+\](?:(.*?)\[\/\g<name>\]|(?![^[]*\[\/))/';
$str = '[vimeo align=\'center\' id=\'123\']//player.vimeo.com/video/123[/youtube]
[vimeo align=\'center\' id=\'123\']//player.vimeo.com/video/123[/vimeo]
[vimeo align=\'center\' id=\'123\']dd';
preg_match_all($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