php date format regex check

Question

i am trying to valdiate the date field "YYYYMMDD" using PHP regex. I tried something like this

/([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})/

but in this one, it's going to accept any two digits like 01-99 for MM or DD, but i am looking to have something for 01-12 for MM and 01-31 for DD. Any advise on doing this?

thanks

Regexes are NOT the way to valid dates, except in the grossest way (e.g. "it's all digits"). '2011-02-29' would get accepted, even though that's not valid date as 2011 isn't a leapyear. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Apr 26, 2011 at 19:28
@all, i agree with the reasons, will write a php fucntion. thanks. — JDesigns
– JDesigns, Commented Apr 26, 2011 at 19:41

James C · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-26 19:27:21Z

4

This should do the job:

function dateValidate($date) {
    $t = strtotime($date);
    return date('Ymd', $t) == $date;
}

edit: Worth noting that this won't be as fast as a regexp but in terms of noticeable performance will work fine.

answered Apr 26, 2011 at 19:27

James C

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Kermit · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-16 19:18:40Z

3

Instead of regular expressions you can also split the string and use checkdate to see if the date is valid.

edited Jul 16, 2013 at 19:18

Kermit

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answered Apr 26, 2011 at 19:31

Karol J. Piczak

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3 Comments

JDesigns Over a year ago

how would i split 20091010 into 3 parts? i don't have any delimiter, should i go with counting the digits and split it?

Karol J. Piczak Over a year ago

If you're sure you have YYYYMMDD you can use substr().

JDesigns Over a year ago

thanks, i did this way and it worked. thanks all. how would i put my sample code here? is it [code] tabg?

Tanner Ottinger · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-26 19:32:07Z

1

Regex doesn't seem very practical for date validation. Why not split it into pieces, then use checkdate()?

answered Apr 26, 2011 at 19:32

Tanner Ottinger

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Comments

Ryan · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-26 19:20:16Z

0

For the month, you could use:

(0[1-9]|1[012])

For days:

(0[1-9]| [12][0-9]|3[01])

Some good examples here.

answered Apr 26, 2011 at 19:20

Ryan

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2 Comments

Karol J. Piczak Over a year ago

What about months shorter than 31 days/leap years etc.? IMHO full validation would be too cumbersome to do with regexp only.

Ryan Over a year ago

True, shorter versions wont work... given format was YYYYMMDD.

Semra · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-03 17:17:04Z

0

DO NOT USE checkdate as checkdate('1\'', '1', '2000') validates TRUE.

answered Apr 3, 2012 at 17:17

Semra

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