>Hi Gregory,
>
>only character 1-4 was in the description. What ever follows follows. ::)

Yes, my mistake. I should have read the whole message
>
>But yes you are right. At least as long loRegExp.MULTLINE is off. <g>
>
>
>BTW. I found some tome to read your link. So understand that building the machine might slow down for complex patterns. This will change the design of the use somehow. Thanks again.

The reason I mentioned the links, was to get a better understanding how the machine works. It's a state machine. The active states are marked with a penny

As to building the machine, this example is perl related. The way we use it, it's only built each time you assign a pattern (and maybe the IgnoreCase as well ?)

But there are times I have a couple of RegEx'es active, each with a different pattern


>
>Agnes
>>hi Agnes,
>>
>>One small correction
>>
>>

>>loRegExp.PATTERN = '^PM\d\d$'  && without the $ it will match PM123
>>

>>
>>>Hi Matthew,
>>>
>>>it will not work with a signle VFP command. You have only like() and this works DOS like with *? wildcards
>>>
>>>You may do something like
>>>

>>>if !(worktype='PM' and isdigit(substr(worktype,3,1)) and isdigit(substr(worktype,4,1))) then
>>>endif
>>>

>>>
>>>there is a more clever solution with regexp.
>>>

>>>loRegExp = CREATEOBJECT('VBScript.RegExp')
>>>loRegExp.PATTERN = '^PM\d\d'
>>>
>>>if !loRegExp.TEST(workplace) then
>>>...
>>>endif
>>>

>>>
>>>Agnes
>>>>Hi there,
>>>>
>>>>I'm having problems figuring out wildcards for string comparisons.
>>>>
>>>>I have a WorkType variable that is a string. It always starts with PM and then a 2 digit number. So I want to have an if statement checking it's valid. i've used this code and it doesn't work:
>>>>
>>>>If WorkType != "PM##"
>>>> lcErrorMessage = lcErrorMessage + "Work type is invalid..."
>>>>Endif
>>>>
>>>>So when valid WorkType come in (e.g. PM03, PM14) they are failing.
>>>>
>>>>Any help would be much appreciated