thanks for all the suggestions, exactly what i was looking for
~M

>>hi all,
>>
>>we have a field in an application that the cusotmer has started using for multiple things and they wish to continue using it that way. initially they may enter some text (20 char field) like COVER COONFIRMED but later they want to enter a PO number that they must supply to their customer to get paid. this PO number if abotu 10 chars long and is comprised of just numbers. they want to ensure that i don't allow them to create an invoice without their being only numbers in this field. I was thinking about going through every character in the field to make sure it is numeric, is there an easier way of doing this?
>>
>>~M
>

>llOnlyNumbers = empty(chrtran(lcString, '0123456789',''))