$re = '/([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}\s[0-2][0-9]:[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9])\.?[0-9]{0,3}/';
$str = '2015-04-04 12:48:53.962';
preg_match($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