Verifying date format in PHP

PHP is widely used these days by many people. Perhaps this even leads to the resulting queries from new users, such as the validation of PHP date format. PHP does not use any complex syntax/expressions forverification of date format, rather the standard DD/MM/YYYY expression can be used. This date format syntax in PHP must have the date and month in single digits only. Below is a simple illustration which shows general verification of the PHP date format. This program is used to verify the input digits given by a user on any PHP platform. One can only verify the date format and not the validity of the date. 


There are several ways to check the format of a date in PHP; the simplest method is to use regular expressions. 

To confirm a date format DD/MM/YYYY, where the days and/or month can be given as a single number: 

<?php   
 function testDate( $value )   
 {   
  return preg_match( ''^\d{1,2}/\d{1,2}/\d{4}$'', $value ) )   
 }   
    
 testDate( '21/11/1999' ); // -> true   
 testDate( '3/9/2008' ); // -> true   

 testDate( 'a/04/2003' ); // -> false   
 testDate( '28-01-2000' ); // -> false   

 testDate( '99/13/1978' ); // -> true   
?>

Note that: 
This function does not check the validity of the date itself, but only the validity of its format.