that's clean solution - thanks sorin
k

>>I am trying to extract the characters BEFORE the @ in an email - is there a single line or simple two step code that can do this?
>>example
>>name_of_sender@thisemail.com
>>
>>I would like only the "name_of_sender"
>>
>>I know the long way round - searching for the '@' by counting characters in a for - endfor loop
>>perhaps a len() that counts to the @ - something along those lines.
>>
>>thanks
>>k
>
> GETWORDNUM(var, 1, "@")