abcdefmonkey as good as the way you showed him is. he is obviously a bit new at coding hence he said the one her posted here was his first one he ever did. the regex could confuse him. maybe explain it so he could take it apart and your explanation would help him figure out how to mod it and change it to suit different needs. but still as a new person coding regex can be a bit confusing. i don't use it much because i still am not that good at it and i've been doing msl for a while now.