PHP regular expression help

[cajunman4life]

Hey guys, writing a regex for PHP to validate date input to be put in an entry in MySQL.

Format must be YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

I have this:

  $must_match = "^[0-9]{4}\-[0-9]{2}\-[0-9]{2}\ [0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}$";
  if(preg_match($must_match, $dte) && $dte) {
    if(!$dte) {
      $query = "INSERT INTO $table VALUES ('', NOW(), 'ajgraves', '$post');";
    } else {
      $query = "INSERT INTO $table VALUES ('', '$dte', 'ajgraves', '$post');";
    }
  } else {
    die("ERROR: You entered an invalid date");
  }
  mysql_query($query);

And no matter what I enter, it always fails. Any ideas?

[cajunman4life]

UPDATE: The code above was borked in that leaving the field blank would always fail. I at least fixed that:

  $must_match = "^[0-9]{4}\-[0-9]{2}\-[0-9]{2}\ [0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}$";
  if((preg_match($must_match, $dte) && $dte) || (!$dte)) {
    if(!$dte) {
      $query = "INSERT INTO $table VALUES ('', NOW(), 'ajgraves', '$post');";
    } else {
      $query = "INSERT INTO $table VALUES ('', '$dte', 'ajgraves', '$post');";
    }
  } else {
    die("ERROR: You entered an invalid date");
  }
  mysql_query($query);

But if I actually enter a date, the correct format fails (so do incorrect formats, which is the intended effect )

I'm thinking it has to do with maybe the way I check for the space? "\ " perhaps isn't the best way. Maybe someone more versed in this can help me

[cajunman4life]

DOH! I fixed it! I forgot two "/"'s. It should look like this:

$must_match = "/^[0-9]{4}\-[0-9]{2}\-[0-9]{2}\ [0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}\:[0-9]{2}$/";

All that was needed to be changed was add "/" in front of "^" and after "$". I hate simple mistakes. Let this be a lesson to everyone else.