$re = '/^([^;,\n]*)(;.*\b\1\b=|;.*;|;)([^;=,\n]+)(,.*|;)?$/m';
$str = '# with k/v pairs declared
http-metrics;http-metrics=/~/healthy;
http-metrics;http-metrics=/~/read;
http-metrics;http-metrics=/ping,http-service=/ping,proxy-test=/proxy
http-service;http-metrics=/ping2,http-service=/ping
http-service;http-metrics=/ping2,http-test=/ping
http-metrics;;http-metrics=/~/healthy
http-metrics;http-metrics=/~/read;
http-metrics;;http-service=/ping
http-metrics;;/ping
http-metrics;/ping;
;;/~/healthy
;/~/healthy;';
preg_match_all($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