$re = '/(?<=<ID>)(\d+)(?=<VAL>)|(?<=<VAL>)[a-z\d]*(?=<ID>)/m';
$str = '<ID>0<VAL>a1b<ID>1<VAL>a2b<ID>2<VAL>a3b<ID>3<VAL>a4b';
preg_match_all($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