$re = '/(?<=\|)\d+(?=\|)|(?<=\+)\d+(?=\+)|(?<=\$)\d+|\d+(?=%)/';
$str = 'Theses are some of the fail cases that I am looking to avoid variable123 or variable_123name or _123_, where some of the acceptable cases are |123| or +123+ $123 123% ext...';
preg_match_all($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