You're still using regular expressions that way. PHP implements that code with the following massive regular expression (line 525 of ext/filters/logical_filters.c):<p>const char regexp[] = "/^(?!(?:(?:\\x22?\\x5C[\\x00-\\x7E]\\x22?)|(?:\\x22?[^\\x5C\\x22]\\x22?)){255,})(?!(?:(?:\\x22?\\x5C[\\x00-\\x7E]\\x22?)|(?:\\x22?[^\\x5C\\x22]\\x22?)){65,}@)(?:(?:[\\x21\\x23-\\x27\\x2A\\x2B\\x2D\\x2F-\\x39\\x3D\\x3F\\x5E-\\x7E]+)|(?:\\x22(?:[\\x01-\\x08\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x1F\\x21\\x23-\\x5B\\x5D-\\x7F]|(?:\\x5C[\\x00-\\x7F]))<i>\\x22))(?:\\.(?:(?:[\\x21\\x23-\\x27\\x2A\\x2B\\x2D\\x2F-\\x39\\x3D\\x3F\\x5E-\\x7E]+)|(?:\\x22(?:[\\x01-\\x08\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x1F\\x21\\x23-\\x5B\\x5D-\\x7F]|(?:\\x5C[\\x00-\\x7F]))</i>\\x22)))<i>@(?:(?:(?!.</i>[^.]{64,})(?:(?:(?:xn--)?[a-z0-9]+(?:-+[a-z0-9]+)<i>\\.){1,126}){1,}(?:(?:[a-z][a-z0-9]</i>)|(?:(?:xn--)[a-z0-9]+))(?:-+[a-z0-9]+)<i>)|(?:\\[(?:(?:IPv6:(?:(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){7})|(?:(?!(?:.</i>[a-f0-9][:\\]]){7,})(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){0,5})?::(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){0,5})?)))|(?:(?:IPv6:(?:(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){5}:)|(?:(?!(?:.*[a-f0-9]:){5,})(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){0,3})?::(?:[a-f0-9]{1,4}(?::[a-f0-9]{1,4}){0,3}:)?)))?(?:(?:25[0-5])|(?:2[0-4][0-9])|(?:1[0-9]{2})|(?:[1-9]?[0-9]))(?:\\.(?:(?:25[0-5])|(?:2[0-4][0-9])|(?:1[0-9]{2})|(?:[1-9]?[0-9]))){3}))\\]))$/iD";