$re = '/^(1[0-6]\d\d|1(?![7-9])\d\d|(?![2-3]\d\d\d)|(?!4000)|4\d\d[1-9])-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$/';
$str = '4000-12-31';
preg_match($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