Validation

[bbonora]

I need to validate a phone number using a if statement and a regular expression. My script will validate the number but the problem I am having is the script returns an error for every phone number field in the form. Since only one field is required I only want the script to check the number if there is something inputed in the field. Also my reg expression does not allow for spaces or dashes. It would be nice to find one that did. Here is the script I have so far. If anyone knows how to fix this I would be very appreciative.

//Check Phone numbers
$validPhoneExpr = "^([0-9]{2,3}[ ]?)?[0-9]{4}[ ]?[0-9]{4}$";
if(!ereg($validPhoneExpr,$_POST['giTelephone']))
{
$msg .="<ul><li>The \"General Information\" section has an invalid telephone number</li>";
include("apply.php");
exit();
}
if(!ereg($validPhoneExpr, $_POST['ref1Telephone']))
{
unset($_GET['do']);
$msg .="<ul><li>The \"General Information\" section has an invalid telephone number</li>";
include("apply.php");
exit();
}
}

if(!ereg($validPhoneExpr, $_POST['ref2Telephone']))
{
unset($_GET['do']);
$msg .="<li>Your second reference has an invalid telephone number</li>";
include("apply.php");
exit();
}



Thanks,
Ben