Regexp type pattern matching

["Jerry Rocteur" <macosx@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I'm runnign a script under Zsh 4.2.6 on Redhat

I'm spawning an egrep to do pattern matching:

if echo ${USER_NAME}|egrep -q "^[prt][0-9]"

But after a while this stops working and I get:
rt_sigsuspend(~[HUP CHLD RTMIN RT_1] <unfinished ...

I've tried to put brackets around it if (echo ${USER_NAME}|egrep -q "^[prt][0-9]")

But it still fails after a while.

From testing it happens after losts of spawning (The above script never failes under ksh).

I've tried to find examples but how do I do this pattern matching in zsh without using egrep:

if echo ${USER_NAME}|egrep -q "^[prt][0-9]"

I find lots of examples of pattern matching on files but how do i do the above in zsh with using egrep or perl etc. ?


Thanks in advance,

jerry