title: Regex validation on UTF8 / multi byte 'language' characters (inc chinese etc) but not special characters such as {/*
body: <p>Using PHP / MySQL all encoded up as UTF, we have recently had to start capturing non-Latin characters, such as Chinese etc. We have PHP validation that checks the string length and alpha numeric such as:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if (!ereg("[[:alnum:]]{2,}",$_POST['company_name'])) {
      //error code here
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is not working on multi byte chars. I understand about the length being an issue (one char is not equal to one byte) but I was hoping if someone could provide a link / solution for  matching a string for UTF8 language characters only NO special characters such as <code>[*/</code> etc.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: I want to accept only a string that is xx long and only contains language characters alebit English / Chinese etc. and NOT any special characters <code>*{/</code> etc. Hopefully that clarifies.</p>