note 42312 added to function.ereg

Have been looking for a way to use variables instead of directly having to specify the characters or string to be checked for . what i mean is: if $a ='a'; $b ='b'; then ereg(($a$b),$some_string,reg[]) should look for 'a' or 'b' in $some_string. is it possible? i need it to be able to use words retrieved from the database in the patterns. I know '$' signifies the end of the string. i'm hoping mebbe there's another way of referencing the variable inside he pattern string . ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ereg.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+42312 Delete -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+42312&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+42312&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php