$re = '/^\s*(?<mac>\w{4}\.\w{4}\.\w{4})\s*(?<vlan>\d*)\s*(?<type>\w*)\s*(?<port>(\w|-|\/|:|\d*)*)\s*(?<vc>\w*\s*\d*)\s*(?<time>(\w|-|\/|:|\d*)*)$/m';
$str = ' ac9e.1797.b9f3 1007 Dynamic gpon-onu_1/2/7:1 vport 1 N/A';
preg_match_all($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