$re = '/(?:\b[_a-zA-Z]|\B\$)[_$a-zA-Z0-9]*+/';
$str = 'aaa
sales_tax
_circleArea
box100width
$directory
ab1234$$
$alpha$';
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