Relative Date Regex Pattern

Live Regex Tester

Pattern Breakdown

Code Examples

const regex = /^\d+\s+(second|minute|hour|day|week|month|year)s?\s+(ago|from now)$/i;
const test = "5 days ago";
console.log(regex.test(test)); // true

// Extract matches
const matches = test.match(regex);
console.log(matches);

import re

pattern = r'^\d+\s+(second|minute|hour|day|week|month|year)s?\s+(ago|from now)$'
test = "5 days ago"
match = re.search(pattern, test, re.IGNORECASE)
print(match)  # Found!

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "regexp"
)

func main() {
    re := regexp.MustCompile(`^\d+\s+(second|minute|hour|day|week|month|year)s?\s+(ago|from now)$`)
    fmt.Println(re.MatchString("5 days ago")) // true
}

Common Use Cases

Match Examples

About the Relative Date Regex

Matches relative time expressions like "5 minutes ago" or "3 months from now" for human-readable timestamps.

Regular expressions (regex) are powerful pattern matching tools used across virtually all programming languages. The relative date pattern is classified as intermediate difficulty in the date & time category. It works in all major programming languages.

When using this regex, always consider edge cases and test thoroughly with real-world data. Use the interactive tester above to validate the pattern against your specific inputs before deploying to production.

More Date & Time Patterns