$re = '/\b0(?!F*~)|([0-F])(?=F*~[0-F]*?\1([0-F]))|~[0-F]*/';
$str = '09~0123456789ABCDEF0';
$subst = "$2";
$result = preg_replace($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