@Pat McCarthy If you want to keep only numbers and alphas, you can use something like this: [^0-9a-zA-Z]+ If you want also to keep some special characters like {}, you can use something like this: [^0-9a-zA-Z{}]+ Obviously, you can add other special characters to the above regex The following matches any non-alphanumeric characters: [^\w\d] Try this interactive tutorial: http://regexone.com/ ... View more