Did you know, that while preg_match is faster than ereg, mb_ereg is even faster? Well, it is.
It’s all about libraries, actually.
- “ereg” uses good-ol’ posix library, which is good, but… well… “old”.
- “preg_match” uses PCRE
- “mb_ereg” uses ultra-fast Oniguruma library
So there is another reason to use utf-8
mb_ereg doesn’t limit you to use utf-8. just remember to specify encoding with mb_internal_encoding(‘Windows-1251′);