Regexp problem

Hi folks My regexps aren't great !! Here's what I'm trying to do:- 1. Grab a list of book titles out of a table 2. Grab a block of text out of a table 3. Search the block of text for each of the titles and if its found replace the raw phrase with a hyperlinked version. So I need to find exact matches for phrases that have NOT already been hyperlinked. I'm using preg_match() and preg_replace() so that I can have case insensitivity. Here's the regexp I have now $find="/\b".preg_quote($thetitle)."(?!.*<\/a>)/i"; $find is then plugged into preg_replace() with a $rep string which is the hyperlinked version of $thetitle. This is supposed to use a look-ahead to check that $thetitle is NOT followed by an </a>. However it doesn't get all the titles, only some. A list like title1, title2, title3, title4, title5, title6 has titles 2, 5, 6 hyperlinked but not 1, 3, 4. Anyone see any immediate problems with my regexp ? (be gentle!!) Or can anyone suggest a regexp that will find a string (case insenstive) in a block of text that is NOT surrounded by an <a> tag ? Headaches all round ... or at least for me .... Cheers -- Ronan e: ronan@thelittledot.com t: 01903 739 997 w: www.thelittledot.com The Little Dot is a partnership of Ronan Chilvers and Giles Webberley