$re = '/^(\w+(?: \w+)*(?: \([^()]*\))?) (\d+|[¼½¾]) (\w+(?: \w+)*)$/m';
$str = 'A sample string 20 something
Some text (just as 1 example) 2 more words
Some text (just as ¼ example) ¼ more words
A sample string ½ something
Some text (just as ¼ example) ¼ more words';
preg_match_all($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