>>
>>Hi Karen:
>>
>>Another solution here :D
>>
>>Considering that there are always three "parts" separated by ":" symbol, this will do it in pure VFP:
>>
>>

>>mstr='1st-title: ANAME-HER : 3520931 place[21-22]'
>>? GETWORDNUM(mstr, 1, ':') + ':' + GETWORDNUM(mstr, 2, ':') + ':' + CHRTRAN(GETWORDNUM(mstr, 3, ':'), '-', '.')
>>

>
>
>Yes, but it turns out that the hyphen is not always a hyphen

...and in that case you add all the symbols you want to replace in the 1st part. What is the problem? I don't see it