Help with Preg match all (newbie)

Hello all, I'm trying to do a name search from a string containing full names. the format of the names is "Lastname, FirstName" the preg expression I'm using is preg_match_all( "/\b$searchstr.*.,.*/i", $text, $array) This works great if you don't type in the full last name i.e. kelle will return my entry but kelley returns nothing. Anyone out there that can help? I'd greatly appreciate it. Well I'm off to read more documentation and see if I can dig it out. -- Michael Kelley mkelley@nmsu.edu Programmer/Systems Analyst I New Mexico State University Information and Communication Technologies Work # (505)-646-1374 P.O. Box 30001 MSC: 3AT Las Cruces, NM 88003