$re = '/(\%(\w+(-|_)?(\w+)?)\%)+/';
$str = '<div class="%class_name%">
This is my pet %breed% and it is %age% years old and has a %best-friend% named %friendName%.
</div>';
preg_match_all($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