Expression that detects patterns

[Lawrence Hartpence]

Hello.

I want to perform an ItemQuery that will find a certain string subset whether it 
appears at the beginning, end or middle.  I thought it was something like this: 
('[SUB]' =~ /'[string]'/).  I thought this was how you looked for a goroup of 
letters, but MapServer thinks that [string] is an item.  I used this expression 
with some success: ('[SUB]' =~ /'.string.'/), but this does not give me 
anything that starts or ends with the string; only cases where the string is in 
the middle.

Any help in how to do this would be appreciated.

Lawrence Hartpence