I have a page with a txt box for a phone number. I added a regularexpressvalidator control to the page and set the control property to point to my phone text box. I then added the validationexpression - ((\(\d{3}\) ?)|(\d{3}-))?\d{3}-\d{4} to the validator and set the errormessage to "bad phone" etc.. But I can still put anything into the text box and it will accept it and insert it into my db without throwing any error. I can't figure out what Im missing.