$re = '/^(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) (3[01]|[12][0-9]|0[1-9]) (19|20)\d{2}$/m';
$str = 'Should pass:
January 12 1975
February 31 2000
May 01 2099
Should fail:
Abbreviated month:
Jan 12 1975
Day out of range:
February 32 2000
No leading zero on day:
May 1 2099
Year out of range:
March 11 1234
Year too long:
May 01 20000
Year too short:
May 01 19
';
preg_match_all($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