Regular Expression Matching problem...

I have a table containing regular expresion patterns for matching phone
numbers with the mobile operators.

For instance, my phone number is '+385911234567', and the regexp for
this mobile operator is: "^\+38591\d{7}$".

Now, when I do a regexp match in a single select, it behaves as
expected:

octopussy2=# select '+385911234567' ~ '^\\+38591\\d{7}$';
?column?
----------
t
(1 row)

Now, as I've mentioned, I have a table with operators and their patterns
for phone numbers:

octopussy2=# select * from operators;
operator_id | operator_name | operator_phonenumber_pattern
-------------+---------------+------------------------------
1 | FreeSMSC | ^\\+38590\\d{6,7}$
2 | VipNet | ^\\+38591\\d{7}$
3 | T-Mobile | ^\\+3859[9|8]\\d{6,7}$
4 | Tele2 | ^\\+38595\\d{7}$
(4 rows)

Now, if I construct my query like this:

octopussy2=# select '+385911234567', operator_phonenumber_pattern,
'+385911234567' ~ operator_phonenumber_pattern from operators;

?column? | operator_phonenumber_pattern | ?column?
---------------+------------------------------+----------
+385911234567 | ^\\+38590\\d{6,7}$ | f
+385911234567 | ^\\+38591\\d{7}$ | f
+385911234567 | ^\\+3859[9|8]\\d{6,7}$ | f
+385911234567 | ^\\+38595\\d{7}$ | f
(4 rows)

Why do I get all the "f"'s? I tought that the operator_id 2 should
return "t", esp. when I wrote the first query it seems that the regex
match was ok.

Or I can't do regexp matching from the table columns?

Mike
--
Mario Splivalo
Mob-Art
mario(dot)splivalo(at)mobart(dot)hr

"I can do it quick, I can do it cheap, I can do it well. Pick any two."