$re = '/(?:^|[^\/\d])\K(?:0?[1-9]|1[0-2])\/\d{4}\b/i';
$str = '1/2017
01/2017
12/2017
5/21/2017';
preg_match_all($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