$re = '/[0-9A-Fa-f]{8}[-]([0-9A-Fa-f]{4}[-]){3}[0-9A-Fa-f]{12}/';
$str = 'cfc4a2fe-f968-4ef8-b685-e73d1b77271a';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($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