$re = '/^(19[789]\d|2\d{3})-((0[13578]|1[02])-([0-2]\d|3[01])|02-[0-2]\d|(0[469]|11)-([0-2]\d|30))T([01]\d|2[0-4])(:[0-5]\d){2}Z$/';
$str = '2017-11-22T16:18:54Z';
preg_match_all($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