$re = '/\S.{0,39}(?<=\S)(?!\S)/m';
$str = 'abcd (efghij # / klmno (# #)
blah blah etc etc words and more words and yet more words. What about these words?
And some more text for this string so that we can test things out.
test test test test test
a
abcd (efghij # / klmno (# #)
blah blah etc etc words and more words and yet more words. What about these words?
And some more text for this string so that we can test things out.
';
preg_match_all($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