Dan,

If you can approach it the other way around, ie only numeric digits are valid:

#define VALIDCHARACTERS "0123456789.+-"

lcX = "1234.456"
? lcX == chrtran( lcX, chrtran( lcX, VALIDCHARACTERS, "" ), "" ) && .T.

lcX = "1234e456"
? lcX == chrtran( lcX, chrtran( lcX, VALIDCHARACTERS, "" ), "" ) && .f.

this way you don't need to upper() or lower() or include all possible bad characters to look for in your strings. I think in your case it's much easier to define the characters that are considered ok.

>What is the slickest way to figure out if alpha characters are in a string
>such as:
>
>x = "234e593"
>? DoesItContainAlpha(x) && Returns .T.
>
>y = "1345.00"
>? DoesIt ContainAlpha(y) && Returns .F.
>
>I can cycle through the whole alphabet and see if one of the
>characters are contained in the string, but that seems to
>long......