$re = '%<((?:Student)?ID)>(\d+)</\1>%';
$str = '<StudentID>12345</StudentID>
Or it can be
<ID>12345</ID>
The input can be
<Somedata>SSS<Somedata><StudentID>12345</StudentID><Name>MMM</Name>';
preg_match_all($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