You mentioned you were going to do something about the @ symbol. I used to use a lot of vbscript on webpages or sql processes when manipulating the data on the server, but the principle was the same. I even had to do some fancy maneuvering on a data collection machine, that insisted on putting in 32 null characters at different parts of the string.

Can you create a function that is a general cleanup tool that strips the @ off (you probably need to trim it at the same time)? I don't want to stick my oar in, but I used to have a library of functions that created that I could always refer to when I was programming. Some of my ASP applications are retiring this year that have been in use since 1997. We developed a dot Net application builder over a decade ago, but some of the old applications were so light and efficient (developed in the age of dial-up modems) that it didn't make sense to replace them.