Hi, Here @ is taking as starting character , this pattern matching will be start after @ character. Anas Sayeed On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 3:23 AM, manika bhatia <manika_bhatia@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > can anyone explain this regular expression > '@^(?:http://)?([^/]+)@i > what is the meaning of @ > thanks > > --------------------------------- > Check out the all-new face of Yahoo! India. Click here. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]