$re = '/(0(?!0)|[1-2]|3(?=[0-1]))\d\/(0(?!0)|1(?=[0-2]))\d\/\d{4}/';
$str = ' some matched dates (DD/MM/YYYY): 33/18/2005 31/01/2009
basic check for month/day boundaries: 33/02/2005 12/18/2007
NO check for month specific boundary: 31/22/2009
';
preg_match_all($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