Warning: ereg(): REG_ERANGE

[sue]

I get the warning message Warning: ereg(): REG_ERANGE when I use

if (ereg("<sup>((?+?[0-9])?)?[0-9_- ()]$",$t))

where $t is a telephone number. THe expression is described as

A regular expression to match phone numbers, allowing for an international dialing code at the start and hyphenation and spaces that are sometimes entered.

Does anyone know what the warning means? I have searched may sites and the php manual and have not found it!

Also,
$t = "01232";
if (ereg("((?+?[0-9])?)?[0-9_- ()]$",$t))
{
echo "yes";
}
else
{
echo "no";
}
returns 'no' and I would expect 'yes' - what have I missed?

Hope someone out there can give me answers! Thanks!</sup>

[tekky]

I got that error when I included a wildcard match like * outside of a brackets I believe it was....

suggestion and good practice until you are a god with regexps...

start small and work bigger

start with ereg("[0-9]",$t) and get that matching a basic # and then work that up as you go adding more functionality to it