Hmmm.... I'm not getting where I want to go. Consider the following code: #!/usr/bin/perl -w
@a = ( "chuck", # Good "chuck99", # bad - numbers in a name? "chuck_5", # bad - numbers/underscore in a name "chuck!3", # bad - symbols? "chuck t", # good (e.g. lastname could be "van gogh" "chuck's", # good (e.g. lastname could be "O'Mally" "chuck()" # bad - symbols ); foreach $st (@a) { if ($st !~ /[a-zA-Z \']+/) { print "$st: bad chars found\n"; } else { print "$st: OK\n"; } } If I use "$st =~ /[a-zA-Z \']+/" it simply says "Do you see one or more of these in the string?" and says all array items are OK. If I use !~ then it says "If you don't see one of these in the string..." it reports they are all bad. What I need is "Do you see something other than one of these?" to flag the bad strings. --Chuck -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]