$re = '/((((\b[1-9]\b|1[0-9]|2[0-8])[-]([1-9]|1[0-2]))|((29|30|31)[-]([13578]|1[02]))|((29|30)[-]([469]|11)))[-]([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]))|(29[-]2[-](([0-9][0-9])(00|04|08|12|16|20|24|28|32|36|40|44|48|52|56|60|64|68|72|76|80|84|88|92|96)))/';
$str = '29-2-2017
31-12-2017
1-2-2017
31-11-2017';
preg_match_all($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