>Hi All,
>
>I need a quick and elegant (quick's better) to clean up a char field that must contain only numbers.
>
>I have to process some tables that are downloaded from several check cashing stores. Check cashing employees are among the most creative types I've ever come accross.
>
>The app they're using on their end allows them to enter anything in the check number field, so sometimes we end up with "0000243" or "0234r;23".
>
>What I need to do is go through the table and spot anything that has leading zeros or characters as part of the string, so that the two samples above would become "243" and "23423", respectively.
>
>I've created a few different algorithms, but would like to get some ideas from others.
>
>So far the fastest I've found is to go through the whole table and check every record with:
>
>if str( val( checknum)) <> checknum
> *something's not kosher with this number
>endif
>
>If anyone has a more creative approach, please let me know...
>
>Thanks!
>
>Alex


REPLACE ALL checknum WITH CHRTRAN(LOWER(ALLTRIM((checknum)),"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz`~!@#$%^&*()-_=+[]{}\|';:/?.,<>"+CHR(34),"")


The CHR(34) will replace any " (quotes) in the string, too.