food for thought from a newbie on your regex... this worked for a few of my tests, but i haven't fully experimented w/it.

i also tried to condense this w/references, but the script would either fail (due to nested quantifiers) or i'd rec'v my 'sorry you goofed' statement... the few ref's i could use didn't save much space. So, if anyone has a better way to revise this - feel free.

my $number =~ /^\s*1?(\.|\-)?\s*((\(|\[|\{)?\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*(\)|\]\})?)?\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*$/

(i know, it's sooo ugly.)

Basically breaks down like this:

^\s*    #start/optional spaces
1?(\.|\-)?\s*           #an optional 1- or 1. with optional spaces
(
(\(|\[|\{)?             #an optional bracket ( or { or [
\s*(\.|\-)?\s*         #space or optional . or -
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      #digit optional . or - and spaces
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
(\)|\]\})?               # choice of closing brackets
)?                          # that section was optional
\s*(\.|\-)?\s*   #space or optional . or -
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      #digit optional . or - and spaces
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
\d\s*(\.|\-)?\s*      # ditto
$                          # nothing more allowed
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it'll yield numbers w/ or w/out a leading "1" - w/ or w/out an area code (w/ or w/out parantheses) then seven digits - all of which can be separated by white-space, a dash, or a dot ->
1.(234]-567.8.9.0.0 should be readable. You could then run it thru a loop to get it into a format you prefered, if ya wished (prob just removing everything 'cept digits would be easiest.) It's tough to account for every format a user would try, but this would do most.

knock-wood