$re = '/^.*?pop_([^_]+)_throughput_\1.*$/m';
$str = 'example_pop_high_throughput_high_strategy.csv
example_pop_high_throughput_base_strategy.csv
example_pop_high_throughput_low_strategy.csv
example_pop_base_throughput_high_strategy.csv
example_pop_base_throughput_base_strategy.csv
example_pop_base_throughput_low_strategy.csv
example_pop_low_throughput_high_strategy.csv
example_pop_low_throughput_base_strategy.csv
example_pop_low_throughput_low_strategy.csv';
preg_match_all($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