I usually do not post entire code. will heed your warning. I read up on isalpha and isdigit. I cannot find anything that lets me write a condition statement when using a string array. the string will accept both char and int. int isalpha(char) returns a nonzero number if the character is a letter, otherwise it retruns a zero. this is what my book says. the code sniplets you provided use reference passing and pointers. I would rather avoid both because anything I add to this code gives me an error. So far I haven't found any information as to checking user input for char. I am ok if it is one letter, but cannot do it with strings. I haven't found anything on the web either that checks for char string input, everything is for int.

thx for all your help and advice