$re = '/\{"app_id":"(?P<appid>(?:\w+))","dev_id":"(?P<devid>(?:\w+))","hardware_serial":"(?P<hardwareserial>(?:\w+))","port":(?P<port>(?:\d+)),"counter":(?P<counter>(?:\d+)),"payload_raw":"(?P<raw>(?:(\w+\=|\w+|\w+\==)))","payload_fields":{"(?P<value>(?:\w+))":"(?P<val>(?:\d+))"},"metadata":{"time":"(?P<time>(?:\w+-\w+-\w+:\w+:\w+.\w+))","frequency":(?P<freq>(?:(\w+.*\w+|\d+))),"modulation":"(?P<modulation>(?:\w+))","data_rate":"(?P<data_rate>(?:\w+))","airtime":(?P<airtime>(?:\w+)),"coding_rate":"(?P<coding_rate>(?:\d+\/\w+))","gateways":\[{"gtw_id":"(?P<gtw_id>(?:(\w+|\w+\-\w+)))"(|,"gtw_trusted":(?P<trusted>(?:\w+))),"timestamp":(?P<timestamp>(?:\w+)),"time":"(?P<times>(?:(\w+.\w+.\w+.\w+.\w+|\w+.\w+.\w+.\w+.\w+.\w+)))","channel":(?P<channel>(?:\d+)),"rssi":-(?P<rssi>(?:\d+)),"snr":(?P<snr>(?:(\d+.\d+|\d+))),"rf_chain":(?P<rf_chain>(?:\d+)),"latitude":(?P<latitude>(?:(\d+.\d+|\d+))),"longitude":(?P<longitude>(?:\b(\d*.\d+|\d)\b)),"location_source":"(?P<registry>(?:\w+))"}\]}}/m';
$str = '';
preg_match_all($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