Subject Re: manipulating a string From Mervyn Bick <invalid@invalid.invalid> Date Sun, 20 Mar 2022 18:51:56 +0200 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started Attachment(s) update_sku.prg On 2022/03/20 16:22, Charlie wrote: > Hi...   I need to change some of our in house sku numbers for certain categories in our inventory.  I am thinking I would do something with the substring but not sure if there is a better way. > > Actually the skus are characters with a liength of 10 or less.   There are two different lengths for different categories.  They always start and end with letters, but in the middle of the string is the mfg part no. > > I want to change skus with 4 digits in the middle and add a zero in front so that they all are usable in a new project. > > So LI2456EX would become LI02456EX. > > Any suggestions on the best way to do this? > > Thanks! It can be done using dBASE functions but using a regular expression will do the job a lot faster. A little example is attached.  It will add 0 to the front of 4 digits between any number of character at the beginning of the sku and any number of characters at the end of the sku.  If there are 5 digits no change will be made. There shouldn't be a problem but make sure you have a backup of the table safely tucked away before you run the program. Mervyn use yourtablename replace all yourfieldname with update_sku(yourfieldname) use function update_sku(cString)    if type('oRegExp') = 'U'       oRegExp = new OleAutoClient("VBScript.RegExp")       oRegExp.global  := true       oRegExp.ignoreCase := true       oRegExp.Pattern := "(\D+)(\d+)(\D+)"    endif    a = oRegExp.execute( cString )    cNew = a.item(0).submatches.item(0)    cNew+= iif(a.item(0).submatches.item(1).length = 4,'0','')    cNew+= a.item(0).submatches.item(1)    cNew+= a.item(0).submatches.item(2)    return cNew