>Keith,
>
>>1234 E 125th St.
>>
>>In this case the only generic rule that you can use that will work
>>is to get the value of the first word.
>
>It should still fit the purpose of determining if it's a number at the start.

You're right David, I just tried the example listed
above, but the reason I went to the first word was
that I had one case where the "exponent" was > 1000
(can't remember the exact address). I get a "numeric
overflow error". That certainly wasn't the rule and
there was only one or two records in the file that
caused the error, but when you're processing a 500K
record file and get that error on 231K (at about 40 rps)
it can really put a damper on your day :-)