Function to check if a string is a date

Question

I am trying to write a function to determine if a string is a date/time using PHP. Basically a valid date/time would look like:

 2012-06-14 01:46:28 

Obviously though its completely dynamic any of the values can change, but it should always be in form of XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX, how can I write a regular expression to check for this pattern and return true if matched.

Answer 1

If that's your whole string, then just try parsing it:

if (DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', $myString) !== false) {   // it's a date } 

Answer 2

Easiest way to check if a string is a date:

if(strtotime($date_string)){     // it's in date format }