$re = '/\*\S+(*SKIP)(*F)|\d/m';
$str = 'hello23 the2e are 13 5.12apples *specially_x00123 named 31st';
$subst = "#";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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