in Perl, i do thusly: $adtext = "This is a {test} john.smith\@mail.mainetoday.com"; $email = $1 if($adtext=~/(\{.*\})/); print "email = $email\n\n"; and i get back "email = "test". i then do thusly in PHP: $f=fopen($test_name, "r"); while(!feof($f)) { $line=fgets($f, 4096); preg_match_all("/(\{.*\})/", $line, $holes); } after this $holes contains the number of elements i expect to get back, but has no values. any ideas what i am doing wrong? :: Andrew Rush :: Lead Systems Developer :: MaineToday.com :: :************************************************************************** "Crippled :but free, blind all the time, i was learning to see" - J. Garcia / R. Hunter :************************************************************************** The :views expressed herein are not necessarily those of my employer, but they let me :have them anyway. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]