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[code]([0-2]?[0-9]|3[0-1])<wbr />/([0]?[0-9<wbr />]|1[0-2])/<wbr />[1-2][0-9]<wbr />{3}[/code]<wbr /> would be a step closer to valid dates but 99/99/9999 is ok as an input for this question. The extraction is ran through another function checkdate() to process the final validation. Thanks Dan for the extra $result = $regs[0]; line as this gives FIRST occurance. Thanks Bill for the first valid REGEX to match. I'll split points to both.
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[code]([0-2]?[0-9]|3[0-1])/([0]?[0-9]|1[0-2])/[1-2][0-9]{3}[/code] would be a step closer to valid dates but 99/99/9999 is ok as an input for this question. The extraction is ran through another function checkdate() to process the final validation. Thanks Dan for the extra $result = $regs[0]; line as this gives FIRST occurance. Thanks Bill for the first valid REGEX to match. I'll split points to both.

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Basically, I want to return the matching FIRST pattern of 1 or 2 digits (as the day), 1 or 2 (digits as the month), 4 digits as the year separated by forwarding slash characters '/' from a valid or malformed input.<br />
<br />
given these hypothetical inputs:<br />
<br />
01/01/2017<br />
1/1/2017/01/03/2017<br />
1/1/2017/01/03/2017/a/b/z/<wbr />0000<br />
a/1/2/b/c/9/1/g/8/99/1/34/<wbr />9/99/2017/<wbr />z<br />
ab/cd/efgh<br />
<br />
I would like the output to be:<br />
01/01/2017<br />
1/1/2017<br />
1/1/2017<br />
9/99/2017<br />
FALSE
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Basically, I want to return the matching FIRST pattern of 1 or 2 digits (as the day), 1 or 2 (digits as the month), 4 digits as the year separated by forwarding slash characters '/' from a valid or malformed input.

given these hypothetical inputs:

01/01/2017
1/1/2017/01/03/2017
1/1/2017/01/03/2017/a/b/z/0000
a/1/2/b/c/9/1/g/8/99/1/34/9/99/2017/z
ab/cd/efgh

I would like the output to be:
01/01/2017
1/1/2017
1/1/2017
9/99/2017
FALSE

PHP Sanitizing Date Inputs via REGEX for first instance of d/m/Y

A regular expression ("regex") is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern, mainly for use in pattern matching with strings, or string matching, i.e. "find and replace"-like operations. Regular expression processors are found in several search engines, search and replace dialogs of several word processors and text editors, and in the command lines of text processing utilities, such as sed and AWK. Many programming languages provide regular expression capabilities, some built-in, for example Perl, JavaScript, Ruby, AWK, and Tcl, and others via a standard library, for example .NET languages, Java, Python and C++ (since C++11). Most other languages offer regular expressions via a library.

Regular Expressions

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