Naomi,

All things are optional? I think it is very unlikely you will be able to retrieve anything from it then <g>

for example given this

E4604 (Meant as Color, no Type, 3 digits for number, No Stone, 1 digit for Quality and no color quality), you will have hard time figuring it out!

>Hi everybody,
>
>I have a character string representing Style which consists of the following portions:
>
>Color (1 letter with - or without -) Type (one or 2 letters) Number portion (could be any number but usually no more than 5 digits and not less than 2) then Stone (1 letter) then quality (number) then color quality (1 letter), e.g. for example:
>W-4568S5B
>E460D4
>E94E
>
>Now, all these portions are optional except for number portion. My task is to get the number portion first, then try to search, if we have a file with the same number, same first portion, same stone (if it was present), different quality. Then if there are no files with the same stone, I need to do other string manipulations.
>
>Can you help me to get Number portion first?
>
>Thanks in advance.