validation

Hi, Newbie alert! I have a form where the action is contact_us.php. What contact_us.php is supposed to do is, validate the name and email address then send me some mail and, put the info into the db. Everything is working except the email validation, the class is working my code isn't. I am using the email validation class from PHP Class Repository. Here is a piece the validation code. I need to learn this, so please explain your answers. // validation check if (strlen($name)<5 ) { header("Location: http://mywebsite.com/test/name_error.php3"); } require("email_validation.php"); if($email)<0){ header("Location: http://mywebsite.com/test/email_error.php3"); exit(); } //Send Email From Contact Form TIA Gary