$re = '/^(?=.*[A-Za-z].*[A-Za-z])([A-Za-z0-9]((?!.*[\._]{2})([\w\d\.]{1,23}))[A-Za-z0-9])$/m';
$str = 'A.s
0as
a.a
a.0
0.0
a._a
a.0a
1rockit.man
q3w
e4.45r.d.2
sp_am
.ret.
123
12a
ret..wer
super_.duper
_petrat or petrat_
';
preg_match_all($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