searching a string

[jpr]

Currently I have code that does the following:

$text is a string
$search is a string of characters

I check to see if $search is contained in $text by using
eregi($search, $text);

How could I modify this so that after it determines that the $search is there, that its is not between the characters "aa" and "zz".

For example:
this is a string of text, aa search_string zz sdafdsfdsds bla bla

Thanks!
Jason

[dta]

$str="this is a string of text, aa search_string zz sdafdsfdsds";
//$str="this is a string of text, aa    search_string         zz sdafdsfdsds";
//$str="this is a string of text, aasearch_stringzz sdafdsfdsds";
$search="search_string";
if(preg_match("/$search/i",$str)){
	echo "found";
	if(preg_match("/aa( )*$search( )*zz/i",$str))
		echo "<br>is between aa/zz";
	else
		echo "<br>it is NOT between aa/zz";
}else
	echo "not found";

that would check once if its there, then check if its somewhere between aa/zz (0-many amount of " " inbetween) . instead of the echo you can just set a boolean variable and build from there.

if this is completely off base, just let me know what you plan on using it for so i understand it better