$re = '/[0-9]{2}(([0-0]{1}[1-9]{1})|([1-1]{1}[0-2]{1}))(([0-0]{1}[1-9]{1})|([1-2]{1}[0-9]{1})|[3-3]{1}[0-1]{1})-[01|21|23|24|01]{2}-[0-9]{4}/';
$str = '870501-00-5299';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($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