Thanks for taking the time to respond. I wound up implementing Hilmar's expression, but I think the INLIST idea has possibilities and I'll investigate it.
>
>Alternately, you could build a list for the inlist function, and then macro it... something like
>

lcExpr=[inlist(myfield, "290", "0290", "00290","000290", "0000290", .... "0000000290")]
>* and then 
>scan for &lcExpr
>...
>endscan

>
>Actually, you could build these lists backwards, making sure that you padl() whatever the user enters with zeros to fill c(10), then build the array or list by chopping one character from the left until the first character is a nonzero.