$re = '/^.*\"(?!\$ref).*\"\: \".*$/m';
$str = '"PaymentMethod": {
"$id": "/properties/PaymentMethod",
"items": {
"$ref": "PaymentMethod.json"
},
"type": "array"
}';
preg_match_all($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