$re = '/(\d{4}(-\d{2}-\d{2}|\d{2}\d{2}))(T\d{2}(:?\d{2}){1,2}(\.\d{1,3})?(([+-]\d{2}(:?\d{2})?)|Z)?)?/m';
$str = '2001-01-20
20010120
2001-0120
2001-01-20T01:20
2001-01-20T01:20:30
2001-01-20T01:20:30Z
2001-01-20T01:20:30+0500
2001-01-20T01:20:30.000Z
2001-01-20T01:20:30+00:50
2001-01-20T01:20:30-00:50
20010120T0120
2001-01-20T012030Z
2001-01-20T0120+0500
2001-01-20T01:20:30.000Z
2001-01-20T01:20:30+00:50
2001-01-20T01:20:30-00:50';
preg_match_all($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