I have a need

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/21/2016 6:37 AM, David Carlson wrote:
> Silly me.  I thought there were numeric greater/equal/less compares in a
> 'number' field similar to what is found in value fields.
>
> I do not speak regex either.  I just found out that regex appeared in early
> Unix days and it is a computer thing rather than a math thing.
Uh, "regex" goes back to those days but is not a "Unix thing" except in 
the sense that a 'nix standard library of utilities will contain a 
function/editor/utility capable of taking a "regular expression" as an 
input to control what is to be found or matched.

A "regular expression" is a very powerful* (compact/concise) way to 
represent the "target" (what to match). But like all very sharp tools, 
dangerous in inexperienced hands. It would take you some time learning 
how to correctly construct the regular expression that would do what you 
wanted done.

Michael D Novack

PS: Be careful what you call a number. While it might be internally 
stored as a numeric field, when you are looking for a number in the 
display of an account (for example) it is at that point just a string of 
characters. You might want/need a STRING PROCESSING tool rather than a 
math tool << the utilities that use a regular expression to control what 
they do are string processing tools >> In other words, if searching for 
the "amount" 123.45 in a Balance Sheet report (for example) you aren't 
searching for the NUMBER 123.45 but the STRING "123.45"