$re = '/^(1|0[1-9]0|0[0-9][1-9]|[1-9][0-9][0-9])$/m';
$str = '<--! select 1 or 001..999 sequences -->
0
1
9
00
09
10
99
000
001
002
004
010
011
021
100
101
110
115
120
125
127
135
139
141
201
222
230
245
247
250
254 sgnlfsf
2340
345
255
853
999';
preg_match_all($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