How to eliminate ( ) / and - out of phone numbers

July 18, 200223 yr

I have a [Phone] file with over 2500 numbers with all different types of separators. Some area codes are separated by ( ), others by / and still others by -. I currently use the following calculation,

"(" & Left(Phone Numbers::Communication Data,3) & ")" & Middle(hPhone Numbers::Communication Data, 4, 3) & "-" & Right( Phone Numbers::Communication Data, 4)

That makes all phone numbers look the same (800)555-1212.

But all the phone numbers are still the way they were initally entered into the [Phone] file. I want to be able to go into the [Phone] file and take out all separators so I just have the numbers like 8005551212. What is a good way of doing so? I use FM 5.5...

Thanks for your help

July 18, 200223 yr

The "TextToNum()" function will ignore all entries except numbers. Subsequent explicit (NumToText()) or implicit conversion to text again will leave the string without the punctuation.

-bd