>I have a phone # that is up to 16 digits long but always more than 7. I have a list of countries and each country has a code that is from 4 to 7 digits long and will match the first 4 - 7 digits of the phone#. The obvious (brute force) way to get the country from the phone# is to seek on the first 7 digits of the phone# and if it is not found seek for the first 6 digits and so on until a match is found. I don't like this method can anyone think of a better way?

I'm not sure I completely understand what you are looking for, but you may want to take a look at the following set's...

SET NEAR
SET EXACT

HTH