$re = '/(\d{1,3})(\d{1,3})?(\d{1,4})?/';
$str = '0
01
012
0123
01234
012345
0123456
01234567
012345678
0123456789';
preg_match_all($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