Regular Expression to match valid dates

Question

I\'m trying to write a regular expression that validates a date. The regex needs to match the following

• M/D/YYYY
• MM/DD/YYYY
• Single digit mon

Answer 1

This is not an appropriate use of regular expressions. You'd be better off using

[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{4}

and then checking ranges in a higher-level language.

Answer 2

Sounds like you're overextending regex for this purpose. What I would do is use a regex to match a few date formats and then use a separate function to validate the values of the date fields so extracted.

Answer 3

    var dtRegex = new RegExp(/[1-9\-]{4}[0-9\-]{2}[0-9\-]{2}/);
    if(dtRegex.test(date) == true){
        var evalDate = date.split('-');
        if(evalDate[0] != '0000' && evalDate[1] != '00' && evalDate[2] != '00'){
            return true;
        }
    }

Answer 4

Regex was not meant to validate number ranges(this number must be from 1 to 5 when the number preceding it happens to be a 2 and the number preceding that happens to be below 6). Just look for the pattern of placement of numbers in regex. If you need to validate is qualities of a date, put it in a date object js/c#/vb, and interogate the numbers there.

Answer 5

Perl expanded version

Note use of /x modifier.

/^(
      (
        ( # 31 day months
            (0[13578])
          | ([13578])
          | (1[02])
        )
        [\/]
        (
            ([1-9])
          | ([0-2][0-9])
          | (3[01])
        )
      )
    | (
        ( # 30 day months
            (0[469])
          | ([469])
          | (11)
        )
        [\/]
        (
            ([1-9])
          | ([0-2][0-9])
          | (30)
        )
      )
    | ( # 29 day month (Feb)
        (2|02)
        [\/]
        (
            ([1-9])
          | ([0-2][0-9])
        )
      )
    )
    [\/]
    # year
    \d{4}$
  
  | ^\d{4}$ # year only
/x

Original

^((((0[13578])|([13578])|(1[02]))[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9])|(3[01])))|(((0[469])|([469])|(11))[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9])|(30)))|((2|02)[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9]))))[\/]\d{4}$|^\d{4}$

Answer 6

Perl 6 version

rx{
  ^

  $<month> = (\d ** 1..2)
  { $<month> <= 12 or fail }

  '/'

  $<day> = (\d ** 1..2)
  {
    given( +$<month> ){
      when 1|3|5|7|8|10|12 {
        $<day> <= 31 or fail
      }
      when 4|6|9|11 {
        $<day> <= 30 or fail
      }
      when 2 {
        $<day> <= 29 or fail
      }
      default { fail }
    }
  }

  '/'

  $<year> = (\d ** 4)

  $
}

After you use this to check the input the values are available in $/ or individually as $<month>, $<day>, $<year>. ( those are just syntax for accessing values in $/ )

No attempt has been made to check the year, or that it doesn't match the 29th of Feburary on non leap years.