$re = '/^([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01]) (0[0-9]|1[0-9]|2[1-4]):(0[0-9]|[1-5][0-9]):(0[0-9]|[1-5][0-9]))$/m';
$str = '2000-10-22 23:59:59
2000-10-22 23.59.59
2000-10-22 24:59:59
2000-10-22 22:99:59
2000-10-22 01:01:01
2000-10-22 2:59:59
// You can show origina post on albertcolom.com/blog';
preg_match_all($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