note vladb You can try perl search/replace regexp: <code> $s = '("test123")'; $s =~ s/(\("|"\))//g; print "$s\n"; </code> Will print: <pre> test123 </pre> <!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only --> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-132645"> <br><br> _____________________<br> <font size="2"> "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce<br> the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." <p/> Robert Wilensky, University of California </font> </div></div> 531458 531458