Chuck wrote:

Due to the nature of the part numbers we are working with, parsing them left,
center, right did not make any difference in the sort order. Your milage may
vary for part numbers with different formats.


I came very close a month ago, but there are some part
numbers did not fit the simple parsing rules I used. As I
see the problem, the trick is to identify which characters
are in the left, middle and right portions given the
apparently ambiguous mix of alphas, digits, the dot/dash and
the fact that each portion can vary from 0 to 6 characters.
There's even one example where the middle portion is not all
digits. It's enough to give me a headache, but intriguing
in a twisted sort of way.

--
Marsh
MVP [MS Access]