$re = '/^((0?[1-9]|1[012])[- \/.](0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- \/.](19|20)?[0-9]{2})*$/';
$str = '12-11-2000';
preg_match($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