$re = '/[ \n\t]*([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*)[ \n\t]+((char)[ \n\t]*\[[ \n\t]*([0-9]+)[ \t\n]*\]|(char)|(int)|(double)|(bool)|(blob)[ \n\t]*\[[ \n\t]*([0-9]+)[ \t\n]*\])[ \n\t]*/';
$str = 'cpf char[12]';
preg_match_all($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