$re = '/^((0[1-9])|(1[0-2]))(([0-2][1-9])|(3[0-1]))((19\d\d)|(2\d\d\d))$/';
$str = '12311902';
preg_match($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