Pattern Matching

Difficult to learn new tricks when you're used to doing something one way, but im applying my mind. Never the less, Im trying to pattern match to find empty fields. Im using the ereg() function. In perl, you just call it. snipit if ( ereg ( " ", $value)) { echo "'$key' Missing input "; } The results : returns false every time. Except for the Submit button, then it returns true *sigh*.... I know that it has to do with what Im searching for and that is basically just a " " <- blank space. Thanks in advance Dan