$re = '/((?<=\D)|(?<=^))(0+)(?=[1-9]+)|((?<=\D0)0+(?=\D))|((?<=^0)0+(?=\D*$))/';
$str = '0.txt
t001.txt
001.txt
00100.txt
0000.txt
001
00100
0000';
preg_match_all($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