Regex for Year + quarter
Quarter format like Q1 2024 or 2024-Q1.
The pattern
^(Q[1-4][\s\-/]?\d{4}|\d{4}[\s\-/]?Q[1-4])$
What it matches
Q1 20242024 Q1Q3-20232024/Q2
What it doesn't match
Q5 2024Q12024
Notes & gotchas
Common quarter notations. Q1=Jan-Mar, Q2=Apr-Jun, Q3=Jul-Sep, Q4=Oct-Dec. Fiscal-year quarters may shift; this pattern is calendar-year.
Code in your language
Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.
Open in explainer →About this pattern
Date and time formats vary enormously across regions and systems. The regex here validates structure only — a date like 2024-02-30 would pass format validation but isn't a real date. After regex passes, parse with your language's date library to confirm semantic validity.
Quick usage in different languages
Once you've validated a candidate value matches this pattern, you'll typically use it inside your application code. Each language has its own regex syntax:
- JavaScript:
new RegExp(pattern).test(value)or/pattern/.test(value) - Python:
re.match(pattern, value)with raw strings:r"pattern" - Java:
Pattern.compile(pattern).matcher(value).matches() - C# / .NET:
Regex.IsMatch(value, pattern) - Go:
regexp.MustCompile(pattern).MatchString(value)— Go uses RE2 so some advanced features aren't available - Ruby:
value =~ /pattern/orpattern.match?(value) - PHP:
preg_match('/pattern/', $value)
The explainer's Code tab generates these for any pattern you paste — including the right escaping and idioms for each language.
Common pitfalls
- Anchors matter. The pattern starts with
^and ends with$— it expects the entire input to match. To find this pattern inside a longer text, remove the anchors and use the/gflag for multiple matches. - Case sensitivity. Letter ranges like
[A-Z]only match uppercase. Use theiflag or[A-Za-z]for case-insensitive matching. - Escape user input. If you're building a regex from a string variable, escape regex metacharacters first to avoid bugs or injection — use
RegExp.escape-equivalents in your language. - Performance. For this specific pattern the risk is low, but be cautious of nested quantifiers when adapting it — they can cause exponential backtracking on adversarial input.
See also
Browse all 300 patterns in the library, or open this regex in the interactive explainer to see a token-by-token breakdown, test against custom input, and generate code in seven languages.