$re = '/&
(?> (?<name>[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z\d]++)
| \# (?> (?<dec>\d++)
| (?<hex>x[\da-fA-F]++)
)
)
;/Xsx';
$str = 'http://foo.com/bar?foo=bar®ion=US®ister=lowpass®_test=fail&trademark=correct
& < >
∴ ¾
⇐ Ü Þ
	 〹
  ˜ © 𝌆 ☃';
preg_match_all($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