$re = '/^(\d{4,4}\-((0[1-9])|(1[0-2]))\-(([0-2][0-9])|(3[0-1])))$/m';
$str = '1988-01-31';
preg_match_all($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