Thanks for the mention Chris! Good article. And I learned a new thing: you no longer need the "if _n_=1" construct any longer which will simplify my code from now on. It also shows that, to be a good coder, you need to be a life-long learner. Otherwise your knowledge will go stale without you realizing it. I am confronted with other peoples code on a daily basis and there is no shortage of examples where regular expressions would eliminate complex and lengthy sequences of other text functions. Spread the word!