php - Identify date-related text in a longer message -

i'm writing script extract dates message , convert them timestamps. php's strtotime (similar unix's date -c 'some date') perfect this, recognizes kinds of dates, such as:

• 5pm today
• 2010-11-15 16:30
• thursday 8:00

however, i'm having trouble finding dates in first place. example, in following string,

i'll there dinner tomorrow @ 9:00pm

i need isolate "tomorrow @ 9:00pm", that's part strtotime recognizes.

is there regular expression or similar return me dates can parsed strtotime?

the thing can think of date_parse. regular expression matches any format accepted strtotime huge.

an example of date_parse:

$str = "i'll there dinner tomorrow @ 9:00pm"; $parsed = date_parse($str); print_r($parsed); 

it output (i removed unimportant parts make result lighter):

array (     [year] =>      [month] =>      [day] =>      [hour] => 21               // 9:00pm     [minute] => 0              // 9:00pm       [second] => 0              // 9:00pm     [fraction] => 0     [warning_count] => 1     [is_localtime] => 1     [zone_type] => 2     [zone] => -540     [is_dst] =>      [tz_abbr] =>     [relative] => array         (             [year] => 0             [month] => 0             [day] => 1          // tomorrow (would -1 yesterday, etc.)             [hour] => 0             [minute] => 0             [second] => 0         )  ) 

whether works depends on input looks like. if have more 1 instance of date in input string, not work expected.