regexp help.

[Anon]

I've created a form that passes data to php script to be validated. I'm using the ereg function for this.

My problem is that when using the ereg function I get a whitescreen as my output no matter what data is held in the variable that I'm using with ereg. Here's my script:

<?
// validate "name" field from workorder.php
if (!ereg("^{[a-zA-Z][[:Space:]][a-zA-Z]$",} $name) echo "Improper name format";
//validate "email" field from workorder.php
if (!ereg("^{[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)}@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)*$", $email) echo "Improper email format";
?>

I've also tried it this way:

<?
// validate "name" field from workorder.php
if (!ereg("^{[a-zA-Z][[:Space:]][a-zA-Z]$",} $name) {
echo "Improper name format";
}
//validate "email" field from workorder.php
if (!ereg("^{[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)}@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)*$", $email) {
echo "Improper email format";
}
?>

I've even tried a simple test:

<?
//ereg test
if (ereg(^[a-zA-Z], $name) echo "not a letter";
?>

This too, outputs a whitescreen.
Am I doing something wrong, or could it be a problem with my php.ini file? I'm using php 4.20.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

[crusty_php]

<?

$dirty_text="21567865087kjh %%&^{&;nlkh_)(~@'#.,//.,¬";}

//If you want to replace the bad bits
$new_string = ereg_replace("[^_A-Za-z0-9 ]","",$dirty_text);
echo $new_string;

//or if you just want to know they're there.
if(ereg("[^_A-Za-z0-9 ]",$dirty_text))
{echo "contains bad text";
}else{
echo "It's clean";
}
?>

[fowlerlfc]

I'm sorry, but that doesn't help me at all.

Maybe I should've been clear: I am an ubernewbie. I'm trying to make sure my syntax is right, because my script is not working.