>Thanks Mark,
>Actually, I need to check if there are characters outside of a list of valid characters. For example A-Z,a-z,0-9, are valid characters, how can I tell if an address has a value outside of these. I know I'm going to be using ASCII values, but what's the best way to search through the string? I use your method a lot myself when I know what I'm looking for. In this case it could be a rather large set of invalid characters, so I don't think it would be the best choice here. Thanks again.
>Marcus.
>
>>Marcus,
>>If you want to remove the characters (not just locate them) then I recommend STRTRAN:
>>
>>pcName = STRTRAN(pcName, "#", "")
>>pcName = STRTRAN(pcName, "!", "")
>>pcName = STRTRAN(pcName, "$", "")
>>..and so on...
>>
>>This function is nice because it removes every instance very quickly.
>>Mark
>>
>>>I need to check names and addresses for invalid characters. What do you guys think is the best command/function to use for this. Thanks for your help.
>>>Marcus.

A rather brute force approach:

Create a string of all valid characters, and spin through each character of the string, copying it only if it's in the set. Something like:

 FUNCTION StripInvalids
LPARAMETERS cStringToValidate, cListOfValidCharacters
LOCAL cResultString, nLengthOfParmString, nCounter, cThisChar
cResultString = ''
nLengthOfParmString = LEN(cStringToValidate)
FOR nCounter = 1 TO nLengthOfParmString
   cThisChar = SUBST(cStringToValidate, nCounter, 1)
   IF cThisChar $ cListOfValidCharacters
      cResultString = cResultString + cThisChar
   ENDIF
ENDFOR
RETURN cResultString