ereg/pattern question

I've got some unexpected things happening in an apparently straightforward bit of code. Take some lines from an INI-file that look like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------- [editbox] Lines=8 Line_0=<FONT size=3 color=#000000 face="Times New Roman"> Line_1=<CENTER> Line_2=<FONT size=5 color=#FF0000 face="Arial"><B><U>This is a test heading.</B></U></FONT></CENTER> Line_3=&nbsp;<BR> Line_4=Here is a <FONT><U>line</U></FONT> with <FONT face="Arial">some</FONT> font <FONT><B>changes</B></FONT> in it.<BR> Line_5=&nbsp;<BR> Line_6=<FONT color=#800080><B>bye now!</B></FONT> Line_7=</FONT> -------------------------------------------------------------------- A bit of code that's parsing it looks like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------- } elseif (ereg("^\[(.*)\]", $lines[$i], $regs)) { // new section $section = strtolower(trim($regs[1])); $iniCachedSections[$filename][] = trim($regs[1]); } elseif (ereg("^(.*) = (.*)", $lines[$i], $regs) || ereg("^(.*)=(.*)", $lines[$i], $regs)) { // <<--- // setting variable $variable = strtolower(trim($regs[1])); $value = trim($regs[2]); if (ereg("^[\"'](.*)[\"']$", $value, $regs)) { $value = $regs[1]; } -------------------------------------------------------------------- The line in the middle that tests for equal signs ('=') ends up returning a $value string that's empty for each of the lines above that contain more than one '=' (ie., Line_0, Line_2, Line_4, and Line_6). Either I've got the wrong patterns or the wrong function. What I want is to split a line like "Line_6=<FONT color=#800080><B>bye now!</B></FONT>" into: $variable = "Line_6"; $value = "<FONT color=#800080><B>bye now!</B></FONT>"; Any suggestions? Thanks -David Schwartz