Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated

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How can I convert ereg expressions to preg in PHP?

My contact form is othervise working but I keep getting the following error:

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in/home/.....

I'm really lost here but I figure this is the part that needs some adjusting.

    if ( empty($_REQUEST['name']) ) {
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $emptyname;
} elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?.\\^$|]", $_REQUEST['name'] ) ) {    
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $alertname;
}
if ( empty($_REQUEST['email']) ) {
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $emptyemail;
} elseif ( !eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(.[a-z]   {2,3})$", $_REQUEST['email']) ) {
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $alertemail;
}
if ( empty($_REQUEST['message']) ) {
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $emptymessage;
} elseif ( preg_match( "[][{}()*+?\\^$|]", $_REQUEST['message'] ) ) {
    $pass = 1;
    $alert .= $alertmessage;
}

Finding a solution would be highly appreciated

You must use preg_match instead of ereg because the last one is deprecated.

Replacing it is not a big deal:

ereg( "[][{}()*+?.\\^$|]", $_REQUEST['name'] )

will become:

preg_match( "/[][{}()*+?.\\^$|]/", $_REQUEST['name'] )

p.s. I had to modify more than one hundred files while I was porting my old project to PHP 5.3 to avoid manually modifying I've used following script to do it for me:

function replaceEregWithPregMatch($path) {
    $content = file_get_contents($path);
    $content = preg_replace('/ereg\(("|\')(.+)(\"|\'),/',
                            "preg_match('/$2/',",
                            $content);
    file_put_contents($path, $content);
}

I hope it helps.