help with regexp (mail validation)

I'm new - or even better, completely lame - at regexps... but I'm pretty interessed in understanding it (I have no need for it right now, it just seem to be really nice to know.)... I had to build a mail catalog... and I did it... to validate the emails I used regexps that I found here on the list... and they're working fine... can somebody please "translate" them for me? like: this regexp string means something that starts with 'this', has 'that' in the middle of 'those' and ends with 'that'.... here it is: "/(@.*@)|(\.\.)|(@\.)|(\.@)|(^\.)/" and "/^.+\@(\[?)[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.([a-zA-Z]{2,3}|[0-9]{1,3})(\]?)$/" thanks in advance... ____________________________ . Christian Dechery (lemming) . http://www.tanamesa.com.br . Gaita-L Owner / Web Developer