$re = '/^(?:(?:[a-z0-9_-]+|[a-z0-9_-]+\*|\*)\/)*([a-z0-9_-]+|[a-z0-9_-]+\*|\*|>)$/m';
$str = 'my/simple/topic/123
my/simple/topic/123/>
my/simple/topic/123/*
my/simple/to*/123/*
my/simple/topic/*/*/>
*/simple/topic/>
my
*
>
my/*imple/topic
my/simple/topic/
my/simple/topic/>/123
';
preg_match_all($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