Regular expression for matching HH:MM time format

Question

I want a regexp for matching time in HH:MM format. Here\'s what I have, and it works:

^[0-2][0-3]:[0-5][0-9]$

This matches everything from

Answer 1

Declare

private static final String TIME24HOURS_PATTERN = "([01]?[0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9]";

public boolean validate(final String time) {
    pattern = Pattern.compile(TIME24HOURS_PATTERN);
    matcher = pattern.matcher(time);
    return matcher.matches();
}

This method return "true" when String match with the Regular Expression.