!ereg not catching all cases

[BOMEz]

I'm trying to validate some user entered text, and I'm using the code below:

$last_name = trim($_POST[‘last_name’]);
if ( !ereg(“[A-Za-z’ -]{1,50}”,$last_name)
{
do stuff to require user to reenter last name;
}
 

Now if I enter the text :"John"..the text is accepted as it should be.
Also if I just enter symbols such as or numbers...it gives the appropriate error message.

The issue at hand is that if I were to enter something like "<john>" it also accepts the text. How can I fix this?

[pbmods]

Heya, BOMEz.

You'll want to use boundary markers in your regular expression:

if ( !ereg("^[A-Za-z' -]{1,50}$",$last_name)
 

You should also consider using preg_match() instead of ereg(), as it is more efficient (http://php.net/preg_match, http://php.net/ereg).

[BOMEz]

Thank you. I got it working

I also looked into using preg_match instead.

[pbmods]

Glad to hear you got it working! Good luck with your project, and if you ever need anything, post back anytime (: