Yes asterisk is used for any number of letters. I believe you will need to escape the period and hyphen as they both have other meanings in regex as well. If it can be either/or you would want them inside of brackets also. It may be helpful to find a regex simulator or write something up quick you can just run to see what it does like make an app that pops up a message box of the results of your match, then edit and quick rerun it until you get what you want. From: program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of RicksPlace Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2012 12:08 PM To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [program-l] Regular Expression Question Hi: I want to edit a ticker symbol in a string all caps. First position must be letter Followed by more cap letters, perhaps a dash or period then at least one more letter. I have this as a starter does it look even remotely correct? ^[A-Z][A-Z]/-?/.?[A-Z] Should there be a star in the second factor to indicate there can be any number of capital letters after the first? Now I am remembering why I didnt use them a few years ago but I hope I can learn this time Thanks Rick USA