$re = '/^((0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])(Jan|JAN|Mar|MAR|May|MAY|Jul|JUL|Aug|AUG|Oct|OCT|Dec|DEC)([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])|(0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|30)(Apr|APR|Jun|JUN|Sep|SEP|Nov|NOV)([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])|(0?[1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-8])(Feb|FEB)([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])|(29)(Feb|FEB)([0-9][0-9])([02468][048]|[13579][26]))$/m';
$str = '1Jan2018 abcd
1Jan18
01Jan18
1Jan2018
01Jan2018
31Jan2018
31jan2018
31jAN2018
31JaN2018
31JAn2018
31JAN2018
28Feb2018
29Feb2018
29Feb2020
31Mar2018
30Apr2018
31Apr2018
31May2018
30Jun2018
31Jun2018
31Jul2018
31Aug2018
30Sep2018
31Sep2018
31Oct2018
30Nov2018
31Nov2018
31Dec2018';
preg_match_all($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