Question about phone numbers in forms

[CincoPistolero]

I have a form that asks for area code -111, and for phone number 999.1234 or 9991234 or 999-1234 and any other variation. What I'd like to do is take whatever they enter as a phone number and only send the numbers into the database - 9991234, that way I can use regular expressions when I pull it out to display it how I want. How do I go about stripping out the "." or "-" before inputting into db. Or is it easier to strip those out when I pull them from the db? Any direct code answers or links to pages containing tutorials or examples is much appreciated.

[timmah1]

I think this will work

$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$new_string = ereg_replace("[^0-9]", "", $phone);